


Children of the Night - Part II: From the Places You Have Feared the Most

by Nos4a2no9



Series: Children of the Night [3]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-20
Updated: 2006-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:35:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nos4a2no9/pseuds/Nos4a2no9





	1. In the 'Haven

Dick Grayson sat in a bar on Fairfax Avenue, sipping from a beer bottle he’d emptied in the restroom sink and refilled with water. The busy hum of a Thursday night surrounded him: high-pitched laughter, the stirrings of a drunken argument, a tuneless song piped in over ancient speakers. He’d come to the bar to be seen. Soon enough a few of his fellow officers came in, nodded stiffly in greeting, and went to their usual booth. They did not ask Dick to join them.

A tall, middle-aged black man sat down next to Dick and ordered a scotch malt whiskey. He was dressed warmly for the increasingly cold Bludhaven winter. The humid bar, hot with so many bodies and a broken air vent, forced him to remove his tan overcoat and a pair of imitation-leather gloves. The man turned, glanced at Dick briefly and began to sip his whiskey, keeping an eye on the action in the bar. A gorgeous blond waitress bent over a table of slightly intoxicated Japanese businessmen, working her chest hard for a good tip. The man beside Dick smiled at the scene.

“Busy night,” he pointed out conversationally. “I’ve never tried this place before. You?”

“I stop by every couple of weeks,” Dick replied, not shopping for a new best friend. He only wanted to put in an appearance tonight to show that he was ‘one of the guys’ before heading out on patrol as Nightwing. Dick hadn’t really felt like socializing in the last few weeks anyway.

“Son, if you don’t mind me saying…you look like something’s weighing on your mind,” the man tried, dark brown eyes signaling an ulterior motive. Dick’s alarms started to go off: he doubted the older man was hitting on him, since it wasn’t that kind of bar, but…

“How’s the case going?” the man asked. Dick shook his head in question. “The case you’re working with Holly.”

Dick took a sip from the bottle of beer to gain a beat before replying. This wasn’t the man from the racetrack. This man screamed ‘COP’ and no one on the Bludhaven force knew anything about the case with Holly. Dick struggled to figure out what angle this man was working and kept coming up with nothing.

“Sorry,” the man smiled, “I’m being rude. Name’s George Flannery,” he said, offering his hand. Dick shook it warily. “I used to be on the Gotham force about ten years ago,” he explained. Dick nodded slightly. The force in Gotham back then was more like Bludhaven’s today: hopelessly corrupt and violent. Bruce had done some housecleaning his first year out as Batman and gotten rid of the worst of the department. Dick wondered if Flannery had lost his job in the process.

“Who are you?” Dick asked.

“We have a common acquaintance,” Flannery explained. “Little black brother. Calls himself the Prophet. Thought you’d be expecting me.”

Dick blinked in surprise. This was the Prophet’s ‘dark man’? A sixty year-old retired Gotham cop? From the way the Prophet had spoken of him, Dick had been expecting a character out of a Stephen King novel, and Flannery hardly fit the bill. He was more Bill Cosby than Randall Flagg.

“Look, I didn’t mean to startle you with this. But I’ve been talking to the Prophet for a while, and he’s told me some interesting things about you. I thought you’d be a guy worth getting to know, and I think I’ve got some information you might want.”

“What kind of information?” Dick asked. Flannery shook his head, sipping his whiskey.

“Not here. It doesn’t concern your day job.”

Dick masked the surprise and fear in his eyes, drinking from his beer bottle and meeting Flannery’s open, honest gaze directly. “What do you mean?”

“Look,” Flannery said, drawing closer to Dick, “I’m not interested in that part of your life. Most of it I knew already. Some of the players had to be filled in and the Prophet did that for me. I’m more concerned with what you’re working now, with Holly. I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. Who Holly really works for.”

“And?” Dick prompted.

“I’ve got a folder on her a mile long,” Flannery promised, fishing a thick manila envelop out of the pocket of his discarded overcoat. “Pictures, mostly. Your little gal pal has been swimming in some dangerous waters. She knows a few sharks. Does the name Selina Kyle ring a bell?”

Dick kept his face immobile, frozen with surprise. He knew that no cop in a hundred miles had any info on Selina. Legally she was dead, and so was Catwoman.

“Maybe,” Dick replied, wondering what information Flannery could possibly offer that would connect Holly Robinson with Selina Kyle. “What do you want in return?”

Flannery smiled as if he’d just decided something. “Time for that later,” he told Dick, putting the envelope back in his overcoat pocket . “For now, let’s just say I’m a concerned citizen who just wants to help. Come by my place later tonight,” Flannery asked, handing Dick a business card with an address scribbled on the back. “Leave the badge at home.”

******************

Renee Montoya checked the address plate, found the name she was looking for and buzzed apartment 407 in the six-story brownstone. No answer. She backed out of the shelter of the foyer, looking up at the right window on the side of the building. She shielded her eyes against the biting wind and ice crystals swirling in the air around her. “Terrific,” she mumbled, seeing that no light was on in the apartment she wanted. Renee glanced around the deserted street. It was late and there was no traffic in the quiet residential neighborhood. The hotel was strictly lower middle-class, caught halfway between a flop house and a Sandman Inn. She tried the buzzer again, hoping the occupant of 407 was asleep and had missed her first request for entry. Still nothing.

“I’m not driving back in this storm,” she told herself, buzzing for the super. He finally answered on the fourth ring, a gaunt-faced man with a skinny black cat wrapped around his shoulder. The cat hissed at Renee, who glared at the little beast in turn. “El diablo gato,” she informed the super, who shrugged and stroked the cat’s greasy fur. “I need 407. I know it’s late, but….”

“No problem,” the super replied once Renee flashed her badge. “He’s been a good tenant. What’s the Gotham PD want with him?”

“Just a friendly conversation,” Renee replied, following the super up a narrow flight of stairs. “How long has he been staying here?”

The super scratched the four-day growth of stubble on his painfully angular chin. “A couple, three weeks, maybe. Pays rent on Sundays, quiet, polite. No trouble. Sophia likes him.”

Renee paused behind him and the cat peaked over the man’s shoulder, yellow eyes gleaming in the dim hall. “Sophia has the run of the place,” he added. Renee got the feeling that tenents either got along with Sophia or they found a new hotel.

“I don’t like cats,” Renee replied coldly, coming to a stop just behind the man. “This it?”

“Yep,” the super replied. “Want the door open?”

Renee cocked her head, listening. There was only silence behind the cheap pine door. “I have to tell this man that his daughter is dead,” she said sadly. “Think I need a warrant?”

The super massaged Sophia’s ears, and the cat emitted a low, guttural purr. “How old was she?”

“Too young,” Montoya replied. “From Gotham.”

“I’m glad we got out when we did,” the super said, his frown pulling his thin face into a death’s-head leer. “That town is…loco,” he tried. Renee didn’t bother to correct his accent. “The ’Haven’s not perfect by any means, but-”

“Could you knock?” she interrupted, wanting to get this over with. They’d ID’d the dead girl on the train late that afternoon. Someone (one guess who) had left the relevant file on her desk at Central. Janine Flannery, 19 years old. Runaway from Gotham. Her father was a retired cop and now Renee had to tell him the GCPD had pulled his little girl off the 5:36. She hated her job sometimes.

The super rapped sharply on the door. No answer.

“He’s home,” he told Montoya. “Key’s downstairs. The guy’s pretty old, right?”

“Past sixty,” Renee said, unsnapping her holster. Something felt wrong. “Did he seem healthy to you?”

The super shrugged, the cat on his shoulder forgotten. “Looked like one of those broken-down old vets at the VA. Told me he was in the ’Nam. He’s a cop, right?”

“He was,” Renee replied. “A long time ago.” She asked him to knock again. The man complied. Still no answer.

“Mr. Flannery?” Renee called through the door, keeping her faint Puerto Rican accent in check. People in neighborhoods like this usually weren’t too accommodating towards people who rolled their r’s. “Can I speak with you?”

Some indiscernible noise echoed through the hall and Renee bit her lip, deciding quickly. “Open it,” she ordered. The super slid the cat off his shoulder and set Sophia down on the carpeted floor gently, removing a ring of keys from the pocket of his rumpled corduroys. He shot the key home and the deadbolt slid back. Renee pushed through the door, hand on her gun. “Keep back,” she told the super, who had already reclaimed his cat and headed off down the hall.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Renee muttered, moving forward into the dark apartment. The light switch by the door was dead and she moved slowly through the darkness, a piece of furniture (an overturned sofa?) brushing against her knee. The air felt strange, electric, and there was a faint odor in the room. Renee had seen enough death to recognize the scent: blood. Without another thought, she drew her gun.

She flicked on a flashlight and held it parallel to her .45, shining the beam along the barrel of her weapon. The place was a disaster. Overturned boxes, broken bits of furniture and clothing was strewn about the hotel room. Most of it was indiscernible junk, the kind found in every cheap hotel room in America. Furniture in mono-chromatic colors, ugly pastel paintings on the wall ripped to shreds, their frames bent and broken. Renee had a feeling that even the Gideon Bible in the bedside drawer would be in tatters.

She kept moving and found the bedroom door. The room was so silent she could hear her own heartbeat and Renee paused a moment, breathing deeply. This was stupid. She should call for backup, someone she could trust. Bullock, she thought wildly, before remembering her partner’s fate. Allen then. Someone.

Her hand on the trigger, she slammed through the bedroom door and shone her light on the only living person in the room.

“Freeze!” she bellowed, lowering her voice to sound more forceful. The bright beam of the flashlight swung into the room, illuminating a young, muscular man crouched on the floor. He stood slowly, hands raised high in the air. It took her a moment to process what she was seeing: even after years on the Gotham force, she was still shocked when confronted by a Mask.

“Detective Montoya,” Nightwing greeted her pleasantly, hands still in the air. He held something in his hands: it looked to Montoya like an advanced fingerprint kit, much too high-tech to belong to a county forensic team. Renee swept the flashlight down to the floor to see what he’d been so fascinated with. Detective George Flannery, late of the Gotham Police Department, lay prone on the cheap yellow carpeting.

“Is he…?” Renee asked, returning the beam of light back to Nightwing’s face. He blinked a few times, then slowly nodded.

“You’ve got a remarkable sense of timing,” he told her. “I just got here myself and found him like that.”

Renee kept her weapon up, not quite ready to believe him. She’d seen this one up close a few times. His tight spandex costume was a bit of a sensation among the female cops on the Gotham force, given his remarkable physique and devil-may-care grin. Nightwing was far more sociable than his darker counterpart, but she still preferred dealing with the Batman. Less crap to cut through.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Nightwing replied, smiling a little. “Ladies first.”

“I don’t think so,” she frowned, gesturing with the .45 to make her point. “Talk.”

“Fine,” he relented, sighing. “Can I at least put my arms down? I‘m a hand-talker.”

Renee nodded, knowing that if he’d wanted to, he would have already disarmed her. She knew who had trained him.

Nightwing lowered his arms, folding them across his chest. “He and I have a mutual acquaintance. We met in a bar earlier tonight and he wanted me to come by. Said he had something important to tell me.”

Renee shined the light on his face again, unable to see if he was telling the truth. The mask concealed more than his identity. “And what did he have to say?”

“It was about a case I was working,” Nightwing said, unable or unwilling to reveal more. “Your turn.”

Renee sniffed, lowering the light to the body of the dead Gotham cop. “I suppose you heard about the body we pulled from that Bristol train a few weeks ago?”

Nightwing nodded.

“That was his daughter.”

Renee finally found out what a Mask looked like when caught completely by surprise. Nightwing’s jaw literally dropped, and she doubted it was part of an effort to deceive her. “His daughter?” he replied, shocked.

Montoya nodded. “Your partner gave me the ID.”

“Guess I’ve been left out of the loop,” Nightwing muttered, wondering why Barbara hadn’t said anything. He knew she’d probably put everything together for Bruce.

“Who did this?” Renee asked, crouching to examine the body. She didn’t touch Flannery or disturb the crime scene. Nightwing, who had been trained in forensics from the age of thirteen, hesitated before crouching beside her. He’d probably contaminated the scene when he’d touched Flannery to check for a pulse.

“How long until you have to call the Bludhaven PD?” he asked.

“Ten minutes,” she told him.

“That’s more than enough time,” Nightwing assured her, rolling Flannery gently onto his back. The dead man’s head lolled to the side and Renee grimaced. His face had been badly beaten and someone had raked long claw marks down the side of his face. One eye was swollen shut and the other stared out into space. Flannery’s lip was split and blood had congealed on his chin. She didn’t doubt the rest of his body was in a similarly abused condition. Renee looked up.

“Someone enjoyed doing this,” she said in the quiet room. “Someone liked hurting him.”

“Or wanted us to think that they did,” Nightwing corrected, brushing his fingers over the scratches on Flannery’s face and neck.

“What?” Renee asked. Nightwing didn’t reply, standing quickly and backing away. “Find something?”

“Nope,” he replied, covering. Dick had spotted the manila envelope Flannery had flashed at the bar. He removed a tiny digital camera from one of the concealed pouches on his forearm, taking a few snapshots of Flannery’s body before asking, “Mind if I look around before you call in the fuzz?” His tone sounded a little less jovial than before and Dick hoped she wouldn’t notice.

Renee sighed. “Knock yourself out,” she told him, glancing around the apartment. She scanned the place with her flashlight, her back to him. When she turned, he was standing by the bed, examining the window. One of the lower panes had been broken.

“This was the perp’s entry point,” Nightwing said, checking the shards of glass around the broken window for traces of cloth or skin. “Fibers,” he announced. “The Bludhaven PD should be able to pick it up from here.”

“We’ve got a better chance of finding whoever did this if you handled things,” Renee said tonelessly. It cost her a lot to admit that. Most of the Gotham cops didn’t even like to look at the Batsignal, let alone invite a Mask to help out on a crime scene. But Renee was a realist and she knew that something like this might be beyond the capabilities of the Bludhaven PD. Forensics was not their strong suit. Neither was catching the guilty.

“I’ve got to check on some things,” Nightwing said, heading for the bedroom door. “Thanks for… Thanks,” he told her. “And Montoya,” he paused, turning to her, sympathy lurking beneath the slitted eyelets. “Keep your chin up. Say hi to Jim for me.”

He disappeared from the doorway, moving into the darkness of the rest of the apartment. Renee squared her shoulders, alone with Flannery’s corpse. She wondered how many crime scenes Nightwing had seen since he’d been a little kid in that silly Robin costume. Batman’s family relationships were a mystery to her. She knew there had been three different boys and two girls who’d helped out Gotham’s premier vigilante, but only Commissioner Gordon had ever been able to tell them apart. She turned back to her job, resolved to find a phone and get some air.

**************


	2. Doubt

Dick guided the Nightbird through the dead streets of Bludhaven, heading for the Aparo Expressway and Gotham. First light was beginning to paint the sky a cold, pale white. He tightened his grip on the wheel, fighting the nausea percolating in his stomach. On the seat beside him lay the plain manila envelope he’d stolen from the crime scene at Flannery’s apartment. Montoya and the Bludhaven cops would never miss it, and he alone recognized how dangerous it was. Dick hit a switch on the dash. Barbara’s voice was piped into the car’s interior.

“Oracle,” she chirped. “You’re exceeding the recommended speed limit, Dick,” she teased. “What if you get a ticket?”

“Babs,” he whispered, working against a lump in his throat. “Can I see you?’

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice entirely different. “Are you hurt?”

“Run a name for me?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied, her voice low with concern. “Ready when you are.”

“George Flannery,” Dick said, speaking slowly, clearly. “I’m also sending you a set of fingerprints I lifted from a murder scene.” He fed the prints into the sophisticated computer scanner embedded in the space below the passenger seat. There was fiberoptic silence on Barbara’s end for a few moments and since his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, Dick pulled off to the side of road.

“Dick?” Barbara asked a little later, her electronically-reconstructed voice sounding tense. “I have the information.”

“Shoot,” Dick responded, lowering his head.

Barbara took a loud, deep breath. “Let me secure the channel,” she said. Dick knew the Oracomm channel was undetectable by any known electronic equipment or audio scanners. Only those who carried a transmitter, those in the immediate Bat family, could listen in on one of Barbara’s secured channels. Dick knew who she was hoping to shut out.

“Detective George Flannery, rank of Lieutenant. There’s not much here on him…military service, honorable discharge…served two tours of duty. Married, three kids. I…oh, Jesus. He’s the father of Janine Flannery.”

“The girl from the train,” Dick finished. “You find out how she died?”

“I ID’d her from facial recognition software early this morning,” Barbara replied. “One of the Sisters at the Immaculate Virgin chapel in the East End finally recognized her. There was no Missing Person report on her. I can’t believe she was a cop’s daughter.”

“Maybe he didn’t want her back,” Dick tried. “Maybe he wanted her out of his life.”

“Nothing about child abuse or neglect in his file,” Barbara contested. “He and his wife were divorced ten years ago. He was fired from the force…I’m checking Dad’s file on him.” There was silence again on Barbara’s end as she worked. Dick punched a button, bringing up a liquid crystal display of the file Barbara had been reading. There was a picture of Flannery’s three daughters on the screen: one of the young women in the picture was smiling broadly, her arms wrapped around the shoulders of her two sisters. She was cleaner, younger, a little chubbier, but a blind man could recognize her from the morgue shots taken after her wasted young body was pulled from the train.

“He was fired from the Gotham force in '88. Dad wrote something about ‘conspiracy’ in his file. Must have refused to testify to Internal Affairs.”

Dick nodded. Batman had overthrown the despotic Police Commissioner Loeb and corrupt Gotham PD officers twelve years ago when he was first starting out his career as a vigilante. Flannery had lost his job in the investigation launched after James Gordon was promoted to Commissioner.

“Then there’s nothing,” Barbara continued. “He doesn’t show up on our radar for the next decade. Not even a parking ticket. He was admitted to a treatment center three years ago for alcoholism but there aren’t any DUIs or related charges on his record. He’s clean, Dick.”

“And the prints?” Dick asked, clearing his throat. His palms felt cold and clammy.

“Just a second,” Barbara replied, the line going quiet again. She came back on and her voice was crisp, efficient. “You pulled these from a murder scene?”

“Yep,” Dick replied. “There’s something else. I-”

“The prints,” Barbara cut him off, anger suffusing her low, melodic voice. “I found a match.”

“And?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “Whose are they?”

“Selina Kyle’s.”

**************

Long afternoon shadows climbed the walls of Selina’s apartment. Sunset today was at 5:47 and they’d woken only hours ago. The precious daylight had slipped by too soon and Bruce couldn’t quite summon the ability to care. He watched as Selina, clad in one of his immaculate white lawn shirts, padded back into the bedroom bearing two dishes of pasta. He admired the presentation: she had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and, although she was not a short woman, the shirttails hung to mid-thigh. Selina had bothered with only a few of the buttons and while the white cotton was hopelessly wrinkled, he would have gladly let her wear it all day, Alfred and his ironing be damned.

Bruce pushed himself up and leaned against the headboard, examining the pasta. It had stopped steaming and was already growing cold on the top. He poked at it experimentally with a fork. Angelhair pasta with alfredo sauce, but Bruce doubted Alfred would even classify it as food. “Microwave?” he asked.

Selina nodded as she climbed into bed and sat across from him, folding her long legs. “I’m impressed with the range of your culinary expertise. The butler never served you instant pasta?”

“No,” he said simply, trying a bite. The center was ice cold and some of the noodles on top were overcooked. But the sauce was acceptable and he appreciated the effort. She was the first woman to cook for him.

Selina watched his face, giggling, and he looked up at her. “You look like you’re trying to diffuse a bomb,” she smiled, poking him in the ribs with her toe. “Sorry it isn’t quite what you’re used to, but I’m well aware of my shortcomings in the kitchen. Can you cook?”

Bruce shook his head, digging into his food. “It’s never come up. I’ve tried chicken noodle soup before, but…”

“Unqualified disaster?”

“Something like that.”

“And to think,” Selina shook her head, “you went to all the best schools.”

He chewed thoughtfully, wondering how much she really knew about his life. In his official biography, published in the wake of the Fairchild murder case to restore Bruce Wayne’s public image, it said he’d been educated overseas and held honorary degrees in business from Stanford and Harvard bought with money and the privilege of his class. He’d left home at fourteen for Europe and, after educating himself in the methods necessary to become Batman, Bruce had returned to America and taken university courses under a different name. He’d manage to build one of the most successful corporations in the world without ever graduating from a even a college night course, but he had gone to the best schools the underworld could offer.

Bruce smiled, thinking of that biography. The only accurate element in his official life story was the title: Wayne: A Life in Shadows. Selina was right. Sometimes the irony did kill him.

“Hey,” Selina interrupted his musings, “don’t look so depressed. The food can’t be that bad.”

“The food is fine,” he told her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And you’re being very formal for a man I’ve recently seen in the throes of passion.” She pushed against his chest with one of her bare feet, wriggling her toes playfully. He marveled at the size of her foot.

“Size eleven. I know, I know…” she shook her head. “I’m about a half-size away from specially-made shoes. You?”

“Size sixteen,” he told her, not mentioning that his shoes were usually custom-made by an Italian cobbler and flown into the US on a standing order. Selina tugged his foot free of the sheets and compared the sole of her right foot to his. Still much smaller, which seemed to reassure her. Selina set her plate aside and climbed under the sheets next to him, pulling off the shirt she’d been wearing with a distinct lack of ceremony. She tossed it to the floor without a second glance.

“I think Alfred would have a conniption fit if you were to stay a night at the manor,” Bruce told her, thinking aloud. A strange expression stole over her face and he realized that, for the past few weeks, they had used her apartment exclusively. He hadn’t even invited Selina up to the manor for dinner.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, guessing at his thoughts. “I don’t think I’m ready to face the extended family yet. Last time I saw any of them, they were interrogating me.”

“I’m…I’m sorry about that,” he told her honestly, going back over the events around James Gordon’s shooting. Catwoman was their first suspect and he’d sent Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin and even Huntress after her. Exactly what had transpired escaped him at the time: he hadn’t left Gordon’s bedside throughout the entire ordeal. But he knew his young apprentices and their affection for Gordon too well to believe the encounter had been pleasant.

Selina seemed to shrug it off. “I’m not going to try to win their approval,” she told him. “I don’t think they would approve anyway. But I would like to see Alfred again sometime. I always had a soft spot for the old man.”

Bruce nodded, thinking. He put his arm around her, rubbing his thumb over her shoulder. “What about Thanksgiving?”

“What about it?” she asked quickly, something brittle in her voice.

“It’s next week,” he pointed out. “Alfred usually insists on a meal with the entire family, and perhaps if you came then it wouldn’t be so…awkward. Dinner is usually interrupted by one of Joker’s attacks with a novelty turkey or some such nonsense anyway.”

Selina shook her head, the fingers of one hand exploring his chest. This was the first time they had been together that she’d failed to notice the scars. A week ago, he might have stopped the movement of her hand. Her touch unnerved him, reminded him that this wasn’t…this wasn’t right. And every time since that first night in the shower, Bruce had tried to convince himself that this was the last time. But Selina would touch him again, and…

“I appreciate the offer, really. But I already have plans,” Selina told him, pulling him back.

It wasn’t quite a lie. She knew Slam had been planning something with her, Leslie and Holly even if it was only dinner at Swiss Chalet. She wasn’t sure if that was still on, however, due to Slam’s continued avoidance of her over the last few weeks. And she hadn’t seen Holly since October, Leslie longer than that.

“Do you feel close to them?” she found herself asking, halting the soft, sensuous motion of her hand.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the…kids, I guess. The two little birds, Batgirl, that Oracle person. Are they family, or just people you work with?”

Bruce considered her question, unsure how to answer. Selina had carefully avoided any mention of his personal life the past few weeks. They patrolled together at night and returned to her apartment around four a.m. He was usually gone by first light. Today was the first day he’d spent entirely with her and he didn’t feel nearly as guilty about the lost time devoted to the Mission as he should. There were a thousand other things he could have done today, the least of which included his Friday exercise regimen and some circuitry work on the Batmobile. He didn’t doubt there was some JLA business to attend to, a WayneCorp crisis better secretly handled by Bruce Wayne than left to his board, and although Oracle was working on the case of the missing girls and the yacht explosion in the Rogers basin from a fortnight ago, he knew he ought to devote time to some of that. It had all fallen away this morning, however, watching Selina sleep. He had tried to leave her, but had instead yielded to his desire to spend time with her not devoted to their duties as Batman and Catwoman. He was beginning to think she came across better without the mask and costume. Perhaps he did, too.

“It must be tough for you,” she said, touching his face. “All these people shoehorning themselves into your life. Did you ever want any of them?”

Her question surprised him. He took her hand and held it, briefly, wondering how to answer. Bruce decided the truth was best.

“I never planned for it. For them,” he clarified. “And I have had a lot of years to reconsider my decision. Perhaps it was a mistake to take Dick in and train him. And the others…” His face darkened. “They bear the cost of the mission. I don’t pretend to believe that their lives are better because of their association with me. To deny them this life would be to deny them a part of themselves, but I can’t help but think it was a mistake from the beginning.”

Selina nodded, thinking of the different boys in the Robin costume, wondering what had happened to the red-headed Batgirl. She knew that there were some things he would never tell her. But when he spoke of his young wards, those children in brightly-colored costumes who’d faced her in battle and gone down fighting, his voice darkened and a strange, desperate expression had stolen over his features. Things had happened to those kids, been done to them, that he’d never forgiven himself for. She had a hard time believing Bruce would intentionally hurt a child, but Selina knew all too well the perils of the life they’d chosen. And to introduce a child to their world…

She kissed him, cutting off that train of thought, trying to ground him in the present before the sadness always lurking within him surfaced and overwhelmed them both. Selina’s hand slipped under the sheets and this time he responded without protest, saying nothing of the darkening hour or the fact that their presence was needed on the streets of Gotham. He kissed her ardently, heat blossoming between them. Selina closed her eyes and moaned softly as Bruce touched her breast, lowering his head to massage her nipple with his tongue. She tipped her head back, fingers curling in his dark hair and he raised his head, watching as she began to lose herself in the moment. 

The shadows lengthened on the wall.

***************


	3. In Xanadu

Wayne Tower, international corporate headquarters of Wayne Enterprises and home to nearly sixty other companies, was a glittering tower of steel and glass set deep in the heart of Gotham’s Diamond District. Before the great ’quake, the business sector of Gotham had been a thriving center of commerce. No less than ninety-one skyscrapers had crowded into the southern blocks of the city, eclipsing all light and space. The ’quake had leveled most of them and only WayneCorp-constructed buildings remained standing. Upon recovering from a severe car accident ten years ago, Bruce Wayne had insisted on quake-proofing all his construction projects, beginning with Wayne Tower, his Xanadu.

Some said the Wayne Tower was an architectural extravagance. Others said it was sheer lunacy. At well over 181 stories high, the Tower dominated the city’s horizon. Built from a revolutionary new steel light-years ahead of its time, the Tower was a unique blend of the Gothic architecture for which the city was famous and more radical ideas of construction and design. Topped with a viewing platform miles above the rest of the city skyline, Wayne Tower served as a beacon for tourists who wanted to enjoy a bird’s eye view of Gotham. Chic restaurants, a slew of movie theaters and a shopping complex occupied several of the first floors of the building. Dedicated office space belonging to Wayne Enterprises and their subsidiaries occupied the rest. The executive floors of the skyscraper began on floor 175 and those who had appointments with the king of this corporate domain waited in the lobby on the 180th floor. There sat Richard Grayson, heir apparent to this triumph of capitalism, cooling his heels as his adopted father chased an assistant around the desk.

“Just a few more minutes, Mr. Grayson,” a young receptionist promised from behind a mountainous desk detailed in silver and chrome. “He’s almost finished with his….dictation.”

A UPS delivery man standing off to the side chuckled, waiting as the receptionist signed for delivery. Dick fought the urge to roll his eyes, wondering how many Wayne employees made jokes about their CEO’s sexual assignations to unwind after a long day at the office. It was a hard topic to avoid. The Gotham tabloids were full of stories about the lust and debauchery filling Bruce Wayne’s life. The city seemed to enjoy hearing about Bruce’s shenanigans, be it a near-fatal car wreck or a midnight rendezvous with a Hollywood sexpot or a European princess. When Bruce had officially adopted him, Dick’s life had come under similar microscopic scrutiny as the Gotham rumor mill tried to illustrate that a poisoned tree bears rotten fruit. His relationship with Barbara had helped still all but the most vicious of tongues; the name of Gordon was a respected one in the city and unlike Bruce, Dick was not willing to sacrifice personal happiness for the sake of a little bad press.

Dick remembered watching Bruce at parties, marveling at the way gorgeous women would throw themselves at the millionaire playboy. And on patrol more beautiful women (this time clad in spandex or leather instead of eveningwear) would throw themselves at Batman. Bruce would still go home alone each night. That had been hard enough for Dick to understand as a kid, but as an adult in an affectionate, satisfying relationship, it was damn near impossible. There was a mile-long list of intelligent, beautiful, compassionate women who’d fallen for either Bruce Wayne or Batman. So why now, why…her? Selina Kyle may have been the Feline Fatal, but there were more honorable women gunning for Bruce. Catwoman seemed to represent everything they were fighting against, criminality foremost among them. After the events surrounding Flannery’s murder, Dick was only beginning to see how dangerous a woman like that could be for Bruce. Barbara had been right to worry.

“Go on up, Mr. Grayson,” the receptionist told him. Dick thanked her and headed for the executive elevator, a sleek column of steel buried deep in the cut-marble wall. The short ride to the top of Wayne Tower was quiet, the floors slipping silently by as an RDR marked their passage. Finally, Dick hit 181 and stepped into another world.

Bruce Wayne’s office was constantly being redesigned. The colors scheme seemed to change every week and his enormous desk alternated between cedar, oak, metal, plastic…whatever element Bruce’s interior designer favored at the moment. The giant conference room down the hall was in a similar state of flux. This week, Bruce’s office was all dark mahogany furniture with silver accents. A massive bookshelf housed hundreds of volumes that the office’s occupant had, presumably, never read. Floor-to-ceiling windows perfectly framed the city below, bathed in late-afternoon sunshine. The East River flowed a half-mile away and from this height, the water didn’t look so dirty. The stench of the factory district near the waterfront had long dissipated, and Gotham was at rest. Dick sometimes wondered if Bruce even noticed the view.

Rays of dusky sunlight banded the room. Dimly, Dick made out various pieces of furniture. A leather-bound sofa, the massive desk, stark, cold pieces of modern art on the walls. It reminded him of his safe house in Bludhaven: sterile, efficient and totally lacking any trace of human warmth. This was the face Bruce chose to present to the world. Each item in his life was carefully calculated for effect, all designed to protect his secret. Only on the large desk were there any items of personal significance.

A photograph taken at a Wayne Christmas party years ago rested in a silver frame beside a dust-encrusted Rolodex. Dick was thirteen in the picture: it was his first Christmas with Bruce after his parents had died. They wore identical tuxedos and Bruce had his arm wrapped awkwardly around Dick’s shoulders. Both were smiling tightly for the camera. Part of him knew that the picture’s presence on Bruce’s desk was as much of a façade as the bit with the assistant that the receptionist had joked about, just misdirection to conceal Bruce’s real agenda. Dick wondered which of the memories scattered on the big desk were real: the picture of Barbara, Tim, Alfred and Leslie at Thanksgiving last year, James Gordon addressing the graduating class at Gotham U, a candid shot of Bruce surrounded by grinning toddlers at one of his Wayne Foundation shelters. Did any of it mean anything to him, Dick wondered, or was it all just window dressing to conceal Batman’s mission?

The door to the executive washroom opened and Bruce’s assistant stumbled out, smiling coyly at Dick. Bruce followed an instant later, lipstick smeared on his collar and his shirt misbuttoned. The assistant exited, twitching her Stairmaster bottom in triumph. The scent of cheap perfume lingered in the air long after she was gone.

“Classy,” Dick muttered. Bruce fixed his collar and rebuttoned his shirt, his face already losing the bland placidity of his playboy personae and adopting Batman’s customary scowl. But his voice was still that of Bruce Wayne, philanthropist and philanderer.

“Dick!” he greeted warmly, loudly enough for the retreating assistant to hear. “Nice of you to drop by!” and in a loud stage-whisper, “Whaddya think of her, huh? Not bad!” The contrast between Batman’s face and Bruce Wayne’s voice was unnerving.

Dick refused to play along. He signed to Bruce that they needed to talk in private. Bruce moved swiftly to his desk, his posture very different from the lazy shuffle he employed in daylight.

Bruce hit a button on his desk that effectively soundproofed the room. The device was necessary in these days of corporate espionage, and so there was a justifiable reason why all electronic listening devices were being jammed, all sound extinguished beyond the walls of Bruce’s office. Dick sometimes joked that the noise filter was an advanced cousin of the ‘dome of silence’ from _Get Smart_. He didn’t doubt that the Luther Corporation wished they had the schematics for it.

“Thanks for clearing your busy schedule enough to squeeze me in,” Dick began, his tone unusually bitter. Dick blamed the manila envelope in his hand. It seemed to weigh heavily on him. He wasn’t quite ready to speak to his adopted father about Selina.

“I thought you were Lucius,” Bruce informed him, explaining the bit with the assistant. “Two of the Wayne board members died this morning, one the victim of a car accident, the other of a heart attack. Lucius was coming up to discuss the restructuring of the board.” Bruce took a seat behind his desk with the air of a king holding court. Dick took the chair facing him. “He would expect me to seduce the new assistant.”

Dick shook his head. “Well, if you want to inspire confidence in your chief stockholder…”

“I’m glad you came,” Bruce cut him off, surprising him. “We should talk.” He paused, visibly collecting his thoughts. That shocked Dick even more. It was rare to see Bruce caught in a moment of indecision.

“So…Catwoman,” Dick encouraged. Bruce shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Selina and I are…”

“Yeah, I got the idea when you went into her apartment at four in the morning. Barbara was pissed.”

Bruce didn’t look at him, but at least he didn’t shoot him one of those ‘the subject is closed’ glares Dick had been subjected to so often when he was a kid.

“What does it mean?” Dick asked, hating the nervous catch in his voice. He hadn’t let himself feel how much it hurt that Bruce was shutting them out. Again. Dick wondered if it was like this between all fathers and sons.

He doubted that it was.

“Barbara thinks you can’t trust her.”

“And what, exactly, does Barbara object to about my relationship with Selina?” Bruce asked, his tone dry, slightly amused. Dick recognized the thread of danger underneath. Bruce never joked, and what Dick said next would determine if this conversation could continue.

“She knows about all of us, doesn’t she?” he asked.

Bruce nodded.

“I guess Barbara feels we should have been consulted about that,” Dick said. “So many of the rogues know…I mean, our security could be improved. We should probably take out a trade ad in Underworld Monthly or something, just announce to all our enemies who we really are.”

Bruce turned from him, angry. Dick knew he’d miscalculated but it was impossible to talk to Bruce about this sort of thing. Either he shut down, or got defensive, or both. Dick didn’t know why he’d even bothered trying. “Selina wouldn't…”

“Yeah, sure,” Dick cut him off, the words escaping his throat without conscious thought. “She’s a paragon of virtue. What do you know about her, really?”

“What do you mean?” Bruce snapped. Dick refused to be intimidated.

“I mean, who is she? You’ve been fighting her longer than any of the other usual gang of idiots. Her file predates even the Joker’s. And whatever you had on your early encounters with her you’ve stored in some super-secret file on the computer. Even Barbara couldn’t access it. What are you hiding?”

The point-blank question startled them both. Bruce replied in an icy tone, his jaw set. “You’ve been attempting to access my private files?”

“Don’t give me that crap!” Dick exclaimed, exasperated. “We’ve done it before, most recently to clear your name of that pesky little murder charge. Sometimes we need to protect you, okay?”

Dick realized Bruce was practicing a relaxation technique he’d taught to Dick in junior high. It didn’t involve a very sophisticated method: he could see Bruce working desperately for control.

“I’m just saying that there are obviously some things about Selina that you don’t trust. Maybe the past, maybe the future…but you’ve put us all at risk. And I think you should know who you’re really dealing with.”

Dick slid the manila envelope he’d taken from Flannery’s hotel room across the desk to Bruce. “An old Gotham cop tried to contact me yesterday. I was supposed to meet him at his hotel later that night, but someone got there first. Someone who wields four-inch claws and whose prints are a perfect match for Catwoman’s,” Dick said quickly, watching Bruce’s reaction. Nothing. It was like trying to interpret a wall.

“Flannery wasn’t just murdered, he was mutilated. Detective Montoya arrived on the scene and I couldn’t really verify anything, but…”

“So this is simply an accusation?” Bruce clarified, rising. “You think that Selina-”

“There’s more,” Dick cut him off. Bruce sat back down. “Barbara finally found the registration on that yacht that blew up in the Rogers Basin two weeks ago. Wasn’t easy, but she made a connection. The yacht’s owner is Peter Bradshaw, Jessica Bradshaw’s father.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes, something sliding into place. “Bradshaw owned the yacht.”

“And Selina led you onto it,” Dick finished. “Didn’t you wonder why?”

“She saved my life that night, Dick,” Bruce told him, his mind recalling in perfect detail every moment of that long night. “But that doesn’t mean that the explosion on the yacht wasn’t deliberate,” he acknowledged reluctantly.

“There’s some ink too,” Dick told him, gesturing at the untouched envelope on Bruce’s desk. Bruce didn’t open it, eyeing the envelope as if it were a viper poised to strike. Dick swallowed hard and continued, telling himself that he had nothing to fear from the man who had raised him. Dick knew that while Bruce might initially be angry, he would eventually appreciate Dick’s interference in his life.

“There’s a name that showed up in the file, one that seems to be pretty important. Barbara tried to research it, put something together for you, but you encrypted all the files from ’91.”

“The Holiday murders?” Batman asked sharply. Dick fought the urge to shiver.

“Falcone. I remember seeing it in case records when you were training me. He was one of the most powerful mobsters in Gotham, right? Your father saved his life once.”

Bruce nodded and Dick breathed more easily.

“The information in the folder indicates that Selina Kyle is the daughter of Carmine ‘The Roman’ Falcone.” Dick watched, stunned, as Bruce lost control. His jaw went slack and he clenched his fists. “Guess that means something, huh?”

There was no response, so Dick continued. “There are DNA tests in the envelope, a timeline…everything seems to be legit. It took Barbara most of the day to analyze the Falcone stuff. But that’s not even the most important thing in that file. There are pictures.”

“Of what?” he asked softly, going into detective mode.

Dick spoke softly, wishing there was another way. “You know what I’ve seen. Hell, you were there when we raided that kiddie-porn warehouse, and I thought that stuff was awful. But this…” He opened the envelope and dumped the contents over Bruce’s desk. Glossy black-and-white pictures, Polaroids and cheap color shots slid over the sleek mahogany surface, the figures in the photos cast in vivid detail. Bruce fingered each shot gingerly, his eyes sliding off the pictures as if he couldn’t bear to focus on one in particular for too long.

“I can’t believe what people do with one another. To one another,” Dick whispered. Bruce didn’t indicate that he had heard him. “They’re all for blackmail, I think. Not that some freaks won’t pay for this stuff, especially with kids in it….” Dick took a deep breath. “But this one is-”

He held up a sepia-toned photograph, wrinkled around the edges and water-stained. There were a number of figures in the shot but only three of the faces were clear. One was definitely Selina, lying on the bed, her profile to the camera. She was perhaps thirteen, nude, her expression indecipherable. A woman stood beside her on the other side of the bed, holding her wrists. And poised over her with a leather strap…

“Jessica Bradshaw’s father,” Bruce whispered.

********************

The snowfall had been steady for the last few weeks, burying the Bristol countryside in a cloud of white powder. It was one of the few times Alfred was grateful for the expansive grounds of Wayne Manor. The snow transformed the area just above the north-east creek into something worthy of a Robert Frost poem. That particular spot, with its otherworldly charm, was best viewed from Alfred’s private dining room. And today he had occasion to make use of both the room and the view, although he couldn’t seem to enjoy either.

“Is something bothering you?” Leslie Thompkins asked him, putting her fork down delicately on the china plate. “I’ve been raving about this lamb for at least ten minutes, and you haven’t made a single self-effacing comment about your cooking ability. I’m slightly concerned.”

Alfred smiled softly, distracted. “I apologize. I confess, my mind is on other things.”

Leslie nodded, sipping from a glass of wine bottled before she was born. “Three guesses as to what, and the first two don’t count.”

“I don’t believe this is appropriate dinner conversation,” Alfred told her, standing to clear away her plate. “Master Bruce can mind his own affairs. And we will be here to clean up the mess afterwards.”

“You’ve become rather pessimistic in your old age,” Leslie told him. “What makes you think Bruce and Selina are headed for inevitable tragedy?”

“The last decade or so of each of their lives.”

“So you don’t approve,” she said, her worst suspicion confirmed. “Of Selina? Or the relationship itself? I thought you’d be overjoyed to discover that he is capable of an adult relationship. You’re always hounding him about grandchildren.”

“I fail to see the amusement in this situation.” Alfred sniffed at Leslie’s odd choice of humor. “And I am surprised that you are not more concerned about this recent development. Must I remind you that she broke his heart ten years ago?”

Leslie shook her head, setting down her napkin. “They were hardly ready for each other. He needed a partner, not a lover. When she left Dick came into his life, and I think that relationship was far more beneficial than the inevitable failure that would have occurred between them if Bruce and Selina had tried something at that point in their lives. She was only eighteen, and he had very difficult work ahead of him.”

Alfred remained silent. Leslie often felt as though she was talking to a brick wall but her heart softened when she saw his concern for the man they each thought of as their son. “It’s something else, isn’t it? You aren’t really afraid she’ll leave him.”

“That,” Alfred told her, “is the least of my concerns. I’m more worried that she will stay.”

Surprise flared briefly in Leslie’s eyes. “Alfred Pennyworth, please tell me that you are not that deeply invested in the class system! You think she wouldn’t make an appropriate wife for him, simply because she was born in Crime Alley rather than Bristol Heights?”

Alfred’s pencil-thin mustache twitched. He doubted Leslie sincerely believed he could be that petty. “That is not what I meant,” he clarified, sighing. “Master Bruce has found the one woman who will never challenge his need to be the Batman. How could this situation indicate growth in his own emotional awareness? He’s found a playmate among the rooftops of this city, not an equal partner.”

Leslie pursed her lips. “Is that so bad?” she asked in a soft, tender whisper. “Would you condemn him to loneliness?”

“Leslie,” Alfred said, looking directly into her eyes. “She will never ask him to stop.”

She closed her eyes, acknowledging her old friend’s fear. It was a long moment before she could respond.

“And you believed that if he married and had children, he would end his mission?”

Alfred nodded slowly, thinking of long, sleepless nights listening for Bruce’s footsteps on the stairs, waiting for the medical alarm in the Batcave to sound and call him to perform emergency surgery, to remove a bullet or repair a broken bone. He had been in service to the Waynes for all of his adult life and had spent the last decade waiting to bury their son. His one hope had been that, somehow, Bruce would outgrow his crusade and realize that there were better options. The burgeoning relationship with Selina had extinguished that hope.

“Alfred,” Leslie tried, touching his hand. Her soft palm was warm, reassuring. “Small steps, remember?”

He nodded, blinking quickly to erase any trace of tears. “I’m an old fool.”

“There is nothing foolish about wanting the best for Bruce. He deserves a happy ending,” Leslie told him. “We all do.”

A car’s headlights flashed against the windows and Leslie’s hand fell from Alfred’s forearm. “I thought you said he was staying in town.”

“He usually does these days. Apparently there has been a change of plans,” Alfred said, rising just as the front door to the manor banged open. They heard Bruce bellowing for Alfred from the lower level of the house. “And such a thing does not often bode well.”

*****************


	4. Dick Makes a Discovery

Dick stood at the door to Bruce’s bedroom, watching Alfred pack a bag for Bruce. The owner of the suitcase was in the Batcave below with Leslie, packing a different sort of bag.

“I’m afraid I do not entirely understand the need for such unseemly haste,” Alfred was saying. Dick tried to focus. His attention had been wandering.

“There have been some…developments,” Dick tried to explain. “About Selina. Bruce is going to New York for some answers.”

“And what revelations, pray tell, does Master Bruce believe will be found in New York?”

Dick swallowed. “It’s about the past. There’s a boxer there, Ted Grant,”

“Heavyweight champion of the world at one point, I believe,” Alfred put in. “And a man not entirely unfamiliar with a mask and a pair of tights.”

“Wildcat. He knows something about Selina, something Bruce needs to confirm.”

Alfred folded the legs of a pair of pants into crisp 90° angles and placed the pants carefully into the suitcase. “Why does he not simply ask Ms. Kyle herself?”

“Look, I don’t really understand most of this,” Dick dodged, moving into the room to help Alfred pack some suits for Bruce. “This is about the murder of a Gotham cop and Bruce seems to think that Ted will be able to explain something about who killed him.”

“Is Ms. Kyle a suspect?” Alfred asked softly, pausing at the window to look at the north creek.

Dick shrugged. “Hey, I just work here, okay? But all signs point to ‘yes’. Bruce just found out that Selina is Carmine Falcone’s daughter.”

“The Roman?” Alfred repeated, a little flummoxed but hiding it well. He returned to the bedside to close the suitcase.

“Apparently,” Dick replied. “It’s got something to do with the Holiday murders, because whatever info Bruce has on it he’s keeping locked away in his files. Do you remember anything from that period?”

Alfred straightened, zipping up Bruce’s overnight bag. “Those were troubled times. Master Bruce had lost an important ally when Harvey Dent became Two-Face. There was a serial murderer eliminating all of the mafia dons of Gotham. Batman’s mission was in danger shortly after it had begun, and he was terribly alone in those days. I suppose Miss Kyle…”

“He knew Selina then?”

The butler shot Dick a derisive look. “Of course he did. She had appeared in Gotham in her Catwoman guise shortly after he began his tenure as Batman. They spared a few times, always in a place connected with the Roman. He questioned why Catwoman would always strike at a Falcone target, but the murders began and such questions became…unimportant.”

“Did he know Catwoman was really Selina Kyle?” Dick asked. Alfred shook his head.

“Not until…not until later on. He was seeing Miss Kyle quite frequently then. She dined here at least twice a week. They were quite…close.”

Dick nodded. He’d known Bruce had dated Selina years ago, but he’d assumed she was just another float going by in a long parade of beautiful women. Alfred seemed to be suggesting that Bruce had been on more intimate terms with her. “So what happened?”

“She disappeared. Master Bruce learned later that she had gone to Italy for undisclosed reasons, and when she returned, Catwoman stepped up her attacks on the Roman’s holdings. She went so far as to disfigure Carmine Falcone and his daughter Sofia. I believe Master Bruce thought for a time that she was responsible for the Holiday murders. Later, a rash of similar deaths occurred among the Gotham police who had been excused from duty after Master Bruce’s efforts during his first year in costume. I think those deaths weighed heaviest on him. Coupled with Selina’s desertion, it was a bleak period.”

“Her desertion?”

“Master Dick,” Alfred warned, his tone that of a stern father, “I do not like to speculate on Master Bruce’s romantic endeavors. But he believed it was possible to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by taking on Catwoman as a partner and Selina Kyle as a lover. Both could adopt well to his world. But she betrayed him and confirmed her status as a career criminal. He was destroyed by it.”

“When did all of this happen?” Dick asked, something twitching on the web of his mind.

“Just before you came to live with us, Master Dick,” Alfred said quietly. “He assumed guardianship of you just after the last of the copycat Holiday murders.”

“After she left him.”

At Alfred’s slow nod, Dick’s heart twisted inside. He had spent so much of his childhood wondering why an isolated, emotionally aloof and reserved man like Bruce would take on a young partner and ward. He had never made any effort to be any kind of a father to Dick. Bruce had spent the majority of his time with Dick training him to be a better crime fighter or maintaining strict expectations of Dick in school. The thought that Bruce had taken in Dick to assuage his own loneliness was oddly comforting.

“Why didn’t he ever tell me?” Dick whispered.

“I suppose he is not aware of his own motivations,” Alfred replied, turning away again to tidy up the room. “Is it so shocking that such a human desire motivated him? It is Master Bruce’s burden to seek love by the use of the wrong methods. He gained a son by losing a love, and he lost a son by gaining a partner. In his heart, he did as he thought best.”

“Small consolation,” Dick replied, still reeling from Alfred’s revelation. “I thought he took me in because he felt sorry for me, or because he thought I’d be useful to him. I never thought it was because he actually needed someone…”

Alfred had finished packing for Bruce. He stood by the doorway, the suitcase in his hands. “He should have told you.”

They left the room together.

********************

His rage was tangible, filling the vast caverns beneath his ancestral home with black fury. Leslie Thompkins kept witness as Bruce paced and prowled like a wild animal, stalking from one task to the next.

“Where will you go?” Leslie asked softly, her warm, soothing tone lost to his anger.

“New York City,” he barked, throwing a utility belt down on a worktable and mechanically restocking it.

“Are you sure Wildcat will be able to answer your questions? Or that he’ll even want to? The state you’re in…”

“I’m fine,” Bruce snapped, slamming a collection of gas pellets into the belt too forcibly. One of the pellets hissed and Bruce threw it across the cave where it became lost in shadows, dispensing an invisible nerve agent. In the morning, some of the bats who inhabited the cave would awake with severe headaches.

“Clearly you’re fine,” Leslie said sardonically. “And ordinarily, I would let you leave for New York and threaten a fellow crime-fighter for information he may or may not have. I might also let you take to the streets and exorcise your demons on an unsuspecting criminal.” She paused and furrowed her brow. “I’ve let it happen often enough,” Leslie acknowledged. “But I consider Selina to be a dear friend. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“You think I’d hurt her?” Bruce asked, still hunched over the utility belt. Leslie knew he was avoiding her gaze.

“I think you are capable of anything if so aroused. Your ability to deal with complex emotional problems is severely limited, Bruce. And when confronted with such obstacles, you respond with physical violence.”

“You sound like a psychiatrist.”

“I am a psychiatrist,” she reminded him. “And so are you, albeit uncertified. You know there are more rational, mature responses to what you’re feeling, Bruce. What bothers me… What has always bothered me,” she amended, “is why you feel you must respond to pain with pain.”

Bruce sighed wearily and for a moment, the tension drained from his body, his shoulders slumping. “Do you even understand what this is about?”

Leslie shook her head, coming to stand next to him. “You’ve discovered something from long ago. An important piece of an old puzzle. It involves Selina and the life she’s given up. But I can’t imagine why her past would matter to you at all, if you really love her.”

He kept silent. Her tactic had worked: he had been forced to let go of the worst of the anger and focus on the more troubling aspect of the revelations about Selina.

“She’s the illegitimate daughter of Carmine Falcone,” Bruce explained. “And she never told me.”

“Does she know herself?” Leslie asked pointedly. “And what does it mater? Selina is no mafia kingpin and she has never taken a life. She is not her father’s daughter.”

“But she lied,” Bruce said, his voice a hushed, dead whisper.

Leslie dipped her head in thought. “And I suppose you have always been completely honest with her?”

“More so than with anyone else,” he said, closing his eyes as he remembered their talk in the car that day, idle conversations on the rooftops as they patrolled together. And in bed, watching as dawn broke over the city. Facing the day together. When he was with Selina, the past seemed far away. Some of the pain and fear he had lived with for the past thirty years faded until there was only her warm acceptance. She was home to him, and the though that what they shared might be a lie, that she wasn’t what she seemed, was unbearable.

“You aren’t really bothered about this Falcone business, are you?” Leslie asked. “It’s something else.”

Bruce considered her statement. His head bowed and he breathed deeply, seeking the truth. His life was a carefully ordered series of lies. It was impossible to be Batman otherwise. Over the past year he had realized the unfairness of such a life, both for Bruce Wayne and his small family who were margininalized for the sake of an illusion. In the wake of that realization Bruce had vowed to be more honest with himself and others. Easier said than done.

“There were pictures,” he said hoarsely. “Of Selina and…and other people.”

Leslie inclined her head. “You knew what she was, Bruce. The things she did for survival.”

“This was something else. There was a picture of her and Peter Bradshaw, Jessica’s father.” He awaited her reaction. Leslie only blinked.

“And?”

Bruce turned away again, rage increasing his heartbeat. “And? AND? This entire situation has felt wrong from the beginning. A girl dies on a Gotham train wearing Jessica’s necklace. It turns out she’s George Flannery’s daughter. Flannery approaches Dick with blackmail photos of Peter Bradshaw, and someone murders him. Selina’s prints were found at the scene. She is at the heart of all of this, and I can’t determine how or why. Coupled with the truth about her parentage and the fact that she’s been lying from the beginning…”

“Bruce, calm down,” Leslie instructed. “I thought a detective could divorce himself from emotion and-”

At that, Bruce swept his arm across the workbench, sending glass beakers and a few utility belts scattering across the cave. The loud crash and sound of breaking glass echoed throughout the cavern. He leaned on the bench, chest heaving. “I don’t-” he tried, then cleared his throat. After another moment of silence, he was able to continue. “I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.”

Leslie was shocked. This wasn’t about the Mission, or Selina’s parentage and her role in the Holiday murders. This was about the impact Selina’s history had on him as a man. Nothing he had ever faced as Batman or Bruce Wayne had prepared him for it.

“I don’t know what to say to her now. How to touch her without wondering if she’s thinking of the others…”

“What were the pictures, Bruce?”

“I think they were designed for blackmail,” he said, regaining some composure. “Bondage, mostly, but like I have rarely seen before. They span several years and are…diverse in their tastes, I suppose. I thought I’d seen the worst-”

He broke off, his great voice catching in his throat. “She was so young, Leslie. Younger than I was when-” He faltered again and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Leslie stepped closer, touching his shoulder. “What are you more angry about? That she kept this from you - all of this- or that your own experiences can’t equal hers?”

Bruce shook his head, his back still towards her. “There are some things I can’t fight, Leslie,” he admitted quietly. “In order to live with myself, I have to view things in a certain light. And I’ve never…” he broke off, hesitating. “I’ve never known what to think of her. How to reconcile what she is with what she could have been.”

Leslie was silent after he had spoken. Bruce turned to face her, his eyes troubled, searching. “What would they have thought of her?”

She dropped her eyes, seeing before her the shattered child she’d held in an alleyway so long ago. Leslie thought of Thomas and Martha Wayne, their hopes and fears for their son. The expectations that had never come to fruition. She considered her reply carefully before speaking.

“They would have admired her courage. Her tenacity in the face of such a brutal life,” Leslie said honestly. “Your mother especially would have adored her. Martha had great respect for those who attempt to atone for the past. But Bruce,” she hesitated, “they wouldn’t have chosen this life for you. And a woman like Selina…”

He turned away, placing the last fully stocked utility belt into a suitcase with a tightly-concealed false bottom along with his costume, cape and cowl. He lifted the heavy bag as though it were weightless. Bruce locked the costume vault and made for the stairway leading up and out of the cave.

Leslie called after him, knowing it might be another decade before he was so honest with her again. “What about Selina?”

“It will keep,” he said, disappearing up the staircase. Leslie was left alone in the dim light of the cave. Overhead, the soft beat of leathery wings was a muffled sound in the still, cold air.

“I hope so,” she whispered in the gathering dark.

*****************


	5. What Tim Found

Tim Drake yawned, his eyes grainy and heavy-lidded beneath the black Robin mask. He had a history paper due in the morning, which meant that after patrol he’d be pulling an all-nighter on the War of 1812.

“Stupid Canadians,” he muttered, trying to mentally assemble the structure of his essay. The night had been quiet. The Oracomm channels had been dead for hours, and the only other vigilante patrolling was Cassie, who wasn’t exactly a great conversationalist. She’d taken off early anyway, forsaking patrol for her own Fortress of Solitude, a satellite cave near Gotham Light and Power.

Tim was finishing his normal route north through the city towards the RKM Bridge. He passed quietly into the hunting grounds of Old Gotham, Crime Alley and the Bowery. At a little past four in the morning, Tim’s police-band setting in his earpiece picked up reports of a domestic disturbance. Given the nature of the report (unreliable) and the neighborhood (Crime Alley) a black-and-white wouldn’t be sent out until there was a body count. Tim quickly found the source of the complaint: an abandoned tenement just off Sprang Street. He thought the call had been a mistake until his night vision registered movement in one of the upper windows of the building. Finding a rooftop access point, Tim went in carefully, feeling for danger.

The building was clearly inhabited, despite outward appearances. The whole top floor was tastefully decorated and expensive electronic equipment occupied an entertainment tower in the living room. He could faintly smell cat food and there was calico hair on one of the Banana Republic sofas lining the south wall. The apartment was cozy, a little messy but otherwise more comfortable than one would expect in this kind of neighborhood. Tim worked his way through the rest of the apartment methodically, learning as much as he could about the occupants from their personal effects. The rest of the building was quiet and Tim began to believe this was a waste of time. A loud thump from what he guessed was a bedroom drew him down the hall. A gasp of pain made him hesitate at the door until he saw there was blood on the carpet leading into the bedroom.

“Damn you,” someone hissed and Tim pushed the bedroom door open. To his shock, in the midst of a destroyed bedroom among the splinters of reduced-to-kindling furniture, Helena Bertinelli stood over an injured woman slumped in the corner of the room.

“Huntress?” Tim asked in disbelief. Helena had drawn her crossbow and she’d already fired two bolts into the woman in the corner. Huntress’ nose dripped blood and one eye was beginning to swell shut. Whatever had happened between the two woman, it had been a hell of a fight.

The woman in the corner moaned softly and Tim’s eyes widened in shock. She was bleeding heavily from where a bolt had pierced her chest. Another had lodged itself in her thigh, snapping the bone. She was tall, slender and athletic-looking with short black hair. There was something familiar about her, but Tim didn’t have the time to search his memory for the woman’s identity.

“What happened?” he exclaimed, moving forward to stop the woman’s bleeding. The shot to her upper body had become fatal. With each heartbeat, more of the woman’s blood coursed out onto the floor.

Helena extended her arm, halting Tim. There was a strange, cold light in her eyes and she lowered the crossbow. “Omerta,” she whispered, leaning forward to spit on the dying woman. Tim pushed past Helena’s restraining arm to kneel over the woman, already unpacking the medkit he carried in his utility belt.

“Who is she?” Tim asked, trying not to look at Helena. Right now, she terrified him. Huntress lowered the crossbow.

“The scum of the earth,” she replied, heading for the window. Tim struggled with the woman’s dead weight as he checked beneath her to determine how far the first bolt had penetrated her chest.

“Wait!” he cried out. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

The Huntress was gone.

Tim paused, considering. The woman moaned again and he shook his head. He decided to contact Oracle rather than the Gotham PD. Barbara’s voice came over the channel sounding hassled and distracted.

“Oracle,” she barked to identify herself on the channel. “Tim, this better be good. Now’s not exactly the best time. The JLA have a crisis on their hands and-”

Tim kept tight control over his voice, panicking a little as the woman’s life ebbed away in a tide of red. “I need a medical response unit to West Sprang 107, top floor of building.”

“What?” Barbara repeated anxiously. He’d definitely gotten her attention. “Tim, where are you?”

“I just walked in on Huntress. Some major-league fight went down and she shot someone with two of those huge arrows of hers,” he reported, trying for some of Dick’s levity. His voice was shaking too much. “Do you know if she’s still using drugged bolts? Because this woman’s fading fast - some kind of anti-coagulant, I think. I need help.”

“Stay with her,” Barbara advised. “Blue Bird is in the area, closing fast.”

Tim breathed a sigh of relief. Dick. Dick was coming. “You’re not sending in the cavalry?”

The Oracom lined hummed. “The GCPD can’t get involved in this, Tim. Do you know whose apartment you’re in?”

Tim looked around, searching for a clue. “Nu-uh.”

“Selina Kyle’s.”

Tim checked the woman’s face again, her features pale from loss of blood. “Catwoman? I thought she was dead.”

Oracle was silent again. “Hold tight, Tim. Dick’ll be there soon and you two will get her stable. Bring her to base.”

“Why the main cave?” Tim asked, curious. “Haven’t the police been looking for her for over a year?”

“There’s a lot to explain,” Oracle replied. “Just wait for Dick. Leslie will meet you.”

*****************


	6. Grant's Gym

The modestly-named Grant’s Gym in Central City was like every other gym Bruce had ever set foot in. It was small, dingy, airless, and the fitness equipment qualified as antiques. A thin layer of dust hovered in the air. The acrid scent of sweat assaulted one at the glass doors leading to the Astroturf-lined reception and office area where an ancient blue-haired crone offered memberships starting at a thousand dollars a month. An Atari computer rested on the scarred surface of her desk and the secretary made no effort to collect sign-up dues or new memberships. The entire operation looked shady. That was the point. Ted had no patience for those who wanted to box in order to lose a few inches off their waistlines or quicken their reflexes. Only people hungry for what he offered were fed.

Bruce shrugged his duffle bag off his shoulder and began doing warm-up stretches. He was wearing ragged, mismatched sweats and sported freshly dyed hair and a fake goatee. The torn sleeves of his sweatshirt emphasized his heavily muscled arms and he set his face in a cold, remote grimace. Bruce knew he looked like any other thug out for the workout of his life under the former heavyweight champion of the world. Ted wouldn’t recognize him unless they sparred together.

The grunts of pain and exertion, the dull thud of bone connecting with bare flesh, that overwhelming odor of stale sweat and willpower… Bruce closed his eyes, thinking of the first time he’d walked into one of Grant’s gyms. It had been late winter in Toronto and the gym had been a sweltering oven compared to the bitter wind blowing off Lake Ontario. Ted kept the place hot to make his guys sweat, he’d explained, skeptical of the skinny fifteen year-old who’d offered any amount of money to train with the greatest boxer in the world. Ted had relented, moved more by the naked determination in Bruce’s eyes than the blank check the Wayne heir had offered. He’d pushed Bruce hard, forcing him to bulk up and live, breath and eat boxing. His time in Canada had been brief: Bruce had only allotted a year for Western fighting methods before beginning his studies of the Eastern martial arts in Japan. Working with Ted had made him tough, fast and able to throw a shattering right-hook. He had learned finesse in Asia, but Bruce had first learned skill in Grant’s Gym.

Ted Grant, a bulky, thickly-built man with a ruddy complexion and a crew-cut stood at the west end of the room, leaning against the ropes running around the Olympic-sized ring. A huge man was sparing in the ring with a heavily-padded partner. Bruce watched as he landed a series of lightening-quick blows on the man’s headgear, keeping his elbow up, conscious of his footwork. He even remembered to protect his lower torso from a surprise shot to the kidney.

“He looks good,” Bruce said, wandering closer to the ring. He injected a slight East Indian cadence into his voice, knowing that with his dark hair, contacts and makeup he passed for a mixed-blood Hindi.

“He should. It’s taken him long enough to learn to watch his left foot. He lets it slide out too far. Sacrifices balance for power. That’ll get him in trouble someday,” Ted predicted, his ageless face frowning at the thought. Bruce knew Ted had fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and didn’t look a day over fifty. Wildcat was a metahuman who’d extended his long life with a mixture of mysticism and scientific advances not available to the general public. Bruce had never asked him how old he was and in return he’d never asked Bruce why a spoiled rich kid from Gotham wanted to dominate in the ring.

“Mind if I…?” Bruce requested. Ted turned and looked him over with a trained fighter’s evaluative glance. There was no flare of recognition in his eyes and Bruce knew the disguise had worked.

“Guess you could hold your own,” Ted nodded, gesturing for one of his staff to fetch a set of gloves and a mouthguard. “What’s your name?”

“Avinash,” Bruce replied, picking a Hindi name popular in southern India. Ted’s mouth twitched.

“Invincible, huh? Better hope so,” he said, holding the ropes apart for Bruce to step in. Bruce popped the mouth guard in between his teeth and held out his hands for one of Grant’s staff to tie the gloves on. Once the lashings were secure, Bruce knocked his gloves together and turned to face his opponent.

The man was big, mean and at least a decade younger than Bruce. He was in the prime of his life and had been in constant training for what Bruce estimated to be a solid four years. He didn’t have a chance.

They began to spar, the man dancing around Bruce on the balls of his feet, jabbing experimentally. Bruce deflected each soft blow easily, memorizing each move. They cut a wide circle, staying near the ropes, stepping forward occasionally to test each other with a soft punch before backing off.

“Cut the sissy crap!” Ted recommended. Bruce’s opponent complied, smiling to display a broken canine beneath the white film of the mouth guard. Bruce eyed him dully, itching for a fight. He moved forward and pulled back his right arm. The man dodged to avoid the punch and Bruce caught him on the side of the head with a surprise left hook. The man blinked, shook his head and leveled a blistering series of blows at Bruce’s midsection. Bruce moved back, keeping his stomach and abdomen protected, not feeling his opponent’s fists. He pounded away at the man’s head, knowing that his opponent’s ears were probably ringing. The man lost control of his footwork, following the pattern Bruce chose to set as he went in for the attack. Rather than help him by moving backwards into the ropes, Bruce stepped lightly to the side. The man stumbled forward, swiveled and launched a blow at Bruce’s head. Bruce ducked, threw a punch at the man’s jaw, and the man went down.

The gym was silent. The other boxers and staff members stood, slack-jawed, as the shinning light of their fight club slumped to the floor. Only Ted seemed unsurprised. He opened the ropes for Bruce to step through and patted him on the back.

“Nice to see you again, Bruce,” Grant smiled.

**************

They went upstairs to Ted’s office, a total contrast to the dirty gym below. This room was clean, spacious, tastefully decorated and comfortable. Grant tossed Bruce a towel and gestured towards the couch. “Take a seat, bask in the glow of victory,” he suggested. Bruce remained standing, throwing the towel around his shoulders. He hadn’t even broken a sweat in the fight with the young hopeful.

“It’s been a while,” Ted said, going to a mini-fridge by his desk and removing two bottles of purified water. He tossed one to Bruce, who caught it easily. “Went Indian, huh? I went up against a Hindi fighter back in ‘51. Took his licks better than any I’ve seen since. Shook my hand afterwards. Nice fella.”

Bruce drank deeply from the bottle of water, replacing the cap with a sharp twist. He wasn’t in the mood for a story about Ted Grant’s conquests in the ring. He’d had his fill of them at fifteen. “I came to see you about a man named George Flannery.”

Ted paused in mid-swallow, the bottle of water poised on his lips. He set the water down and wiped his mouth. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. How’s George doing?”

“He’s dead,” Bruce told him bluntly. “Murdered.”

“You know who killed him?” Ted asked, his eyes going hard and cold. Bruce didn’t respond, waiting for Ted to go on. Ted sighed, knowing Bruce wasn’t likely to part with information he wasn’t initially inclined to give.

“We served in Vietnam together,” Ted told him. “He was just a stupid kid back then: I didn’t think he’d last a week. So I took him under my wing, showed him how to survive in that hellhole. He worked his way up through the ranks, made Captain his second tour.”

“And he became a detective?”

“Yeah,” Ted replied, settling in behind the battered desk in his office. “Joined the Gotham force after we pulled out in ’75. I opened up a gym there in ’86. We reconnected, started working together.”

“Doing what?”

“The good work,” Ted said cryptically, taking another sip of water. “Saving lives. He was working the East End in those days, Vice mostly. Pulled a lot of young hookers out of dumpsters. You weren’t in Gotham back then, Bruce. Probably don’t have any idea how bad it was. Things changed when you arrived, and Gordon. But back then…”

Ted trailed off, the young, haunted faces filling the sex district in Gotham swimming before him. “There was a place down in Gotham Square…lots of video arcades, stuff like that. Kids would hang out there, young boys mostly. They’d play the games, hang out, work the cars. Their pimps would set ’em up with dates and in return they’d get money to play pinball. A couple quarters in exchange for their innocence. You could see how dead they were by their eyes,” Ted told him, blinking hard. “You ever work a case down there?”

Bruce shook his head. “It’s different now. I did some tidying up down there. Gordon’s men did the rest.”

“Well, the way it was…things like that killed Flannery. He just…” Ted paused. “He hated to see kids getting chewed up by life. He had three little girls. Used to say that he couldn’t look ’em in the eyes unless he did something to make the world better for them. I didn’t blame him. What are we supposed to tell our children about this world, huh?”

Bruce didn’t have an answer.

Grant continued as though it didn’t matter. “We worked a system with the underage hookers in the Bowery. When they got beaten up or OD’d and got a room at Gotham General, Flannery would flash his badge and hand them my phone number. I’d train them, teach them how to fight. We saved a few girls like that. George thought we made a mistake with one, however.”

“Selina,” Bruce supplied. Ted nodded.

“She took to the training like a duck to water. Best I ever taught, present company included. The way she moved…for some it’s innate ability, for others the drive gets them through it. She is the single finest natural athlete I ever met, with ability and determination to spare. I thought she was a meta, back in those days.

“Then she became just another Gotham freak. Nothing could stop her. She got more and more violent. Went after cops, criminals, a certain pointy-eared superhero… It didn’t seem to matter to her which side of the line people were on. Everyone was an enemy to her. George couldn’t handle it. He felt responsible for her, kept saying that we’d unleashed this…this thing on Gotham. He started drinking and his wife left him. Took the kids. He lost interest in the good work and I moved away. We didn’t keep in touch.”

“You never heard from him again?” Bruce asked.

Ted shook his head slowly. “I heard a few things. George was still drinking heavily, picking fights in bars. His daughter, his youngest, got into some trouble with drugs. She ran away a few years ago, ended up on the streets. George was desperate to find her, but she never turned up. Then Catwoman went after Gordon…”

Ted paused, twisting the bottle between his large hands. “Look, I know Selina’s changed. Hell, I just saw her a couple months ago and she seemed to be doing great. More peaceful. But three years ago…who knows? Last Flannery heard she was dead, killed in some explosion in the Bowery. He called me up, drunk, talking crazy. Said she was after him. Said she was a ghost. I don’t think Selina even remembered who he was.”

“You never asked her about him?”

Ted looked at him directly, eyes narrowed. “I never ask Selina about the past. Do you?”

Bruce didn’t reply. Ted broke the uneasy silence between them with a harsh chuckle. “You looked good in there. Remembered some of the things I taught you. Picked up a few new tricks, too. And you seemed to enjoy it more.”

“What?”

“The violence,” Ted replied, the warmth and humor in his tone not reaching his eyes. “I kept track of you, all these years. That stuff with the murder…”

Bruce kept his posture relaxed. “What’s your point?”

“I’m just saying that people get accused of things they didn’t do all the time. Way of the world. Plenty probably thought you were guilty when Fairchild’s body turned up in Wayne Manor, all beaten to hell. I thought it was possible, when I heard. But Bruce,” he said, leaning forward, “just because I doubted you doesn’t mean I went out and started making accusations. I just thought I’d ask you, if I ever saw you. But I wasn’t gonna go behind your back with a shovel and start digging up the past.”

Bruce nodded, picking up his bag. “Point taken, Ted.” He opened the door and missed Ted’s sardonic grin.

“Still a few things to learn, I see” Grant smiled, looking over his appointment schedule.

**********************

Bruce left the heat of Grant’s Gym behind, forsaking the club for the crisp, cold air of the street outside. It was already dark in the city. He didn’t doubt that somewhere, between heartbeats, the Flash was hard at work, preventing disasters as they occurred. Bruce leaned up against the brick wall at his back, slumping to camouflage his size and build. He’d be mistaken for another hopeful seeking Grant’s tutelage, one that had a long way to go between flyweight and heavyweight.

The stars above the city were bright and clearer than in Gotham, unobscured by centuries of industrial pollution and the mists of the East River. The added starlight made the streets of the city seem even more alien to him. The ache began to build inside. It was the same ache he’d endured every night he was away from Gotham, traveling the world in search of useful skills and training. Ten years of heartache: that was the legacy of his youth, and at that time he had just only begun his long acquaintance with tragedy. Now this business with Selina…

He sighed in the cold air, his breath a white cloud. There had been no answers here, only difficult questions. Ted was perhaps the only living person who could shed light on Selina’s past, and if he was unwilling to condemn her-

The cell phone in the pocket of his trousers chirped and he opened it with a flick of his risk. “Avinash,” he greeted pleasantly in his best imitation of a Bengali accent, in case anyone was listening.

Barbara’s voice responded on the other end. She spoke slowly and Bruce found himself analyzing the patterns of her voice before actually hearing her words. “Selina’s been hit. Huntress went after her.”

The world slowed to a crawl. People passing by on the street, the sounds and smells of the city all faded and somewhere, Bruce heard two gunshots echo through the concrete jungle around him.

“Is she…” he asked numbly.

“She’s stable,” Oracle told him. Bruce closed his eyes. The world could move again.

“But Leslie’s worried. You should come home.”

*****************


	7. A Visitor

He caught the next flight back to Gotham, anonymous in the chaos of coach amid squalling babies and overdone chicken dinners. The drive back to the manor was a blur and even then, when he finally saw Leslie and learned what had happened, his mind still wouldn’t clear.

“She’s in a great deal of danger,” Leslie whispered, her white surgical gown dark with Selina’s blood. “Alfred is still working on her. It’s that damn anti-coagulant. Did you know Helena was using such a thing?”

Bruce didn’t respond, looking past her into the bright white light of the surgical bay set into the heart of the cave. Leslie sighed, considering him only a day after their last conversation. She had never seen him so utterly defeated. Bruce was bleary-eyed, unshaven, every muscle tensed in worry. He had been so angry earlier, and now…

Now he might lose someone else.

“We need to know,” Leslie ask quietly, “Is there any chance she could be pregnant?”

Bruce’s eyes flicked back to hers, shadows shifting and sliding between them. “Why?” he asked hoarsely.

“There would be no way to save the child, given the loss of blood. But her body would fight to preserve that life, and…” Leslie trailed off, resting her hand on his shoulder. “We just need to know.”

“We weren’t careful,” he admitted softly. “Damn foolish…we were both so surprised by it.” His eyes were still on the white surgical bay where Selina fought for her life. “It was irresponsible and-”

“Not now,” Leslie hushed him tiredly, tying her surgical mask on firmly. “It will be a very long night. I suppose it will be an act of unparalleled optimism to ask you to get some sleep, but…”

He gave no indication that he had even heard. Leslie shook her head and left him to sterilize her hands before returning to surgery.

****************

Hours later, Bruce sat beside Selina’s bedside, keeping vigil. Machines monitoring her heartbeat and respiration beeped softly in the still, dark house. Wires belonging to IV tubes, a catheter and a complex heart monitoring device crisscrossed beneath the blankets layering the bed. He worried that the tubes would twist and some vital fluid wouldn’t reach its destination.

“Thought I’d find you here,” someone chided from the shadows of the room behind him. “Alfred gave me strict orders to make sure you rest and eat something. I suppose I’m probably the only one who can force you to do something you don’t want to do,” he added, stepping closer to Selina’s bedside.

“What are you doing here, Clark?” Bruce asked, not looking at the tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in a modest brown suit and horn-rimmed glasses.

Clark Kent pulled an extra chair up next to Bruce. The priceless antique chair creaked with his weight. “Relieving you.”

Bruce ignored him, counting the beats recorded on the heart monitor. Still weak. She was fighting, but it didn’t look good.

“Bruce, I…I don’t know what to say. Tim told me what happened; poor kid’s a wreck. Dick too, although I think it’s something else with him.”

“I hope you didn’t come in here to tell me that,” Bruce said harshly. “I’m sure you’ve got more important things to do.”

“It’s been a slow news day,” Clark reported, removing his glasses to polish them as if Bruce had said something else, something less cruel. “J’onn had a message for you and I haven’t been to Gotham in a while. Thought I’d deliver it personally, touch base. You haven’t pulled Watchtower duty in a while.”

“I’ve been busy,” Bruce grunted in reply, projecting annoyance with every last atom of his being. “What did J’onn want to tell me?”

“That can wait,” Clark said. “I’m more worried about you. And Selina,” he said, looking over the still figure on the bed, X-Ray vision penetrating Selina’s flesh and bones. “The bolt penetrated pretty far into her chest cavity.”

Bruce shrugged, sitting back a little. Once Clark started in on a sermon, there was very little that could deter him.

“Tim said that he thought Huntress did this. I can’t imagine why Helena would go after someone you…someone that you care about,” he corrected, directing piercing blue eyes unlike any shade on earth at Bruce. “I was a little surprised when Tim told me that you and Selina are-”

Bruce stood, cutting Clark off. He went to the window and watched the city across the river, lights reflected in the dark water. Clark spoke to him softly.

“I’m sorry this had to happen, Bruce. But she’ll pull through; she’s a strong girl with a lot to live for. Remember that when you consider breaking it off because you can’t bear the thought of something worse happening to her.”

Bruce turned sharply, glaring at Clark. “I want to be alone with her,” he told his friend and colleague. “Get out. Now.”

Clark didn’t move. He’d weathered enough disagreements with Lois to know when not to back down. And Bruce reminded him a lot of Lois, sometimes.

“You’re no good to her like this, you know,” Clark told him. “Get some rest. She isn’t going anywhere.”

“What would you know about it?” Bruce snapped, turning back to the window. “X-Ray vision isn’t capable of that kind of diagnosis.”

“I know Selina,” Clark replied. “And you know the first thing I thought of when Tim told me she’d been injured? That time she snuck aboard the JLA base to steal the Storm Opals and ended up saving all of us from Prometheus. We made her a League member that day and you were so annoyed you didn’t even want to give her a ride home.”

“What’s your point?”

“That she is probably the only person who’s ever been able to really surprise you, Bruce,” Clark said, replacing his glasses. “And if she’s able to accomplish something like that…well, she’s far too original to die. I’ll keep watch. Make Alfred happy and get some sleep.”

*****************

Bruce did not do as Clark requested. He had long ago made it a point of personal honor never to do what Clark requested. If he couldn’t wait for some change in Selina’s condition at her bedside, then he would take to the night. Work would provide some much-needed distraction and, hopefully, some of the strange revelations of the past few days would be resolved. Instinctively, he headed for the East End and Selina’s apartment.

The building was as Tim had left it, dark and deserted. He surveyed the ruins of Selina’s apartment. Most of the small rooms were in shambles. The comfortable living room was untouched and the always-cluttered kitchen was intact, but the bedroom was a lost cause. He mentally reconstructed the fight from the trace evidence left behind. Huntress had entered through the window in the hall. Selina always left it unlocked, she had explained softly last week, in the event that he might “drop by”. Huntress’s presence had been noticed quickly, and they had perhaps argued. Things had only become violent in Selina’s bedroom. From the looks of things, she had locked the door and Helena had burst in. They fought and, judging from the relatively untouched condition of Selina’s face and Tim’s description of Helena’s bruises, Huntress hadn’t been able to land a blow and had resorted to her crossbow.

He knew Selina’s fighting techniques better than anyone, save perhaps Ted Grant. Selina practiced unique blend of martial arts, street fighting and gymnastics. What she lacked in brute strength she made up for in grace, speed and finesse. If so inclined, she could win a fight based on those methods alone. Cat burglars normally didn’t have to engage in drawn-out physical battles, but Selina knew how and where to hit. Huntress was a formidable combatant but lacked Selina’s skill in non-violent confrontations. Her intent was to secure the capture of a felon; Selina’s was escape. Her survival instincts were stronger than Helena’s resolve. That was probably the reason Helena had been forced to use the cross-bow. Selina might have tried to make it for the window and, once out on the rooftops of the city, there would be no catching her.

Batman checked the rest of the bedroom for further clues as to what had transpired between the two women. Huntress was still missing. Dick had been searching for hours with strict orders to contact him when Helena was found. Batman moved towards the window and something crunched beneath his feet.

He crouched down, picking up an old photograph encased in a cracked and broken frame. The two little girls in the picture wore identical white dresses of Confirmation. They posed on the stoop of an East End tenement, serious, almost world-weary expressions working against the presumed innocence of their white dresses and pin-curled hair. He calculated their ages: Selina was eight, Maggie five. Their mother would be dead in less than a year and the two pretty little girls in the picture would be shipped off to social services. Their father would drink himself to death, Selina would find herself on the streets by age eleven, and Maggie…well, Maggie would know her own kind of suffering.

Batman knew that the little girls in the picture were unaware of their sad fate but they still looked as though they expected some kind of future tragedy. He recognized the same expression on his face in every picture taken after his parents were murdered.

He removed the picture from the destroyed frame, inserting it into a large compartment in his utility belt. He would return it to Selina as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Turning to go, Batman felt a fist connect sharply with his jaw.

The blow surprised him and his head snapped back. He could taste blood on his tongue. Readying himself for an attack he assumed a fighter’s stance and faced his adversary. Slam Bradley.

“Where is she?” Slam demanded, fists clenched tightly, fire in his eyes. Batman relaxed slightly, wiping at the blood dribbling out of the side of his mouth.

“You surprised me, Bradley,” he said in a low growl. The sound of a gun being cocked was loud in the small room. Batman met Slam’s wild, angry eyes and Slam pointed a .45 Magnum directly at Batman’s head.

“Where. Is. She?” Slam asked, pronouncing each word carefully. “Talk, Freak! I don’t think you’ve got enough Kevlar wrapped around those pointy ears of yours to stop a bullet.”

Batman lowered his hands, keeping them in plain sight, trying to calm Bradley down. “She was attacked.”

“Your work, or someone else’s?”

“Someone else’s,” Batman replied. “Selina is safe. And receiving medical attention.”

Slam considered him a moment longer, then slowly lowered the gun. Batman replaced the tiny, razor-sharp Batarangs he’d palmed into their secret compartments within his glove. He stepped back slightly, giving Bradley some space.

Slam was breathing heavily, his heart racing. It had been bad enough to find Selina’s place in ruins, but to have to watch Batman paw his way through her things… “I want to see her,” he informed Batman, his voice shaking.

The silence between them was deafening. Slam closed his eyes briefly, knowing he’d played it wrong. His request to see Selina had sounded like begging. Now the Bats had the power, and Slam knew his name wouldn’t be on any invitations to wherever Batman had taken Selina. “Is she okay?”

“She’s still in danger,” Batman replied. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Why?” Bradley asked simply, sinking to the bed. “What the hell did she do to call something like this down on herself?”

“She’s a suspect in the murder of a former Gotham cop named George Flannery.” He was watching Slam carefully for some reaction but Bradley didn’t indicate that he had ever heard the name before. “She may also be involved in another death and a disappearance.”

“And she had time to do all of this between casual fucks?” Slam asked coarsely.

Batman did not allow himself to react.

Slam stood, replacing the Magnum in his shoulder holster. “I told her this was a mistake. That there was no way you could ever… She’s had one of the toughest lives I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve been around. There is nothing you could offer her that would make life any better for her,” Slam told him. “And this is the proof. You end it, now, or I swear to God-”

“You’re in love with her,” Batman said dismissively, turning to leave.

“Of course I am!” Slam exclaimed, his face open, truthful. “Question is, why aren’t you?”

Batman froze. Slam continued, unimpressed. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? She’s not really a murder suspect or any of that other crap you’ve accused her of. It’s just a way to use her and then toss her away. Kudos, buddy. You’re a worse person than I thought you were.”

Batman turned, his cape falling silently into place around him. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about her,” he said quietly. “If she is responsible for a death, she will go to prison.”

Slam snorted. “You know Selina. She’d rather die than do time again.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Why not?” Slam asked sarcastically. “Because you’ve always done such a great job of protecting her, especially from herself? Nothing happens in this town without your say-so. This attack on her went down with your blessing. I know what you can do, and it was in your power to prevent this,” he decided. “Damn you for that! For all of it, all the rotten things you’ve let happen to her because you were too weak or scared or incompetent to help her. She shouldn’t have had to suffer like she has!” Slam roared, pushing past him to the door.

“I better hear from you within twenty-four hours and then see for myself that Selina’s okay. If not, I’m heading to the cops, to the media, to anyone who’ll give a shit about who you really are, Brucie.”

With that, Bradley left, slamming the door behind him. Batman was left in Selina’s room among the rubble.

*****************


	8. Swimming Lessons

  
The light was blinding.

It was just like they described in the cheesy self-help books about after-death experiences. There was a tunnel and bright healing light. She felt herself being pulled towards that beautiful whiteness, the expanse that promised that she could just lie down and stop fighting for once in her life.

It was all there, except Selina had a funny feeling that if she went into that light, she’d be letting someone down. Someone important. Herself, maybe, only she’d wanted to end it plenty of times and the thought of living again only irritated her. Someone else, then. Live for somebody else.

“What the hell?” she thought to herself. “It’s only, what? Another fifty, sixty years? Less at the rate I’ve been going.” So she fought the light. “Keep swimming,” she whispered.

******************

“What did she say?”

“I didn’t catch it.”

“I thought you had some sort of super-hearing.”

“…”

“Suit yourself. Selina, dear, open your eyes. C’mon, you can do it.”

Selina complied, working hard on what Leslie was telling her. She didn’t recognize the man’s voice; at first she’d thought it was Bruce, but the timbre wasn’t right. And the guy had some kind of Midwestern accent…

“Where am I?” she asked, not recognizing the ceiling above her. Leslie’s kind face leaned into her field of vision.

“Wayne Manor,” Leslie told her gently.

“What happened?” Selina groaned, trying to sit up. “I feel like - ooof.” She sat back quickly as a searing pain radiated from…well, everywhere. Mostly her head. She had a hell of a hangover, so whatever else had happened, she knew she’d probably enjoyed herself. “I feel like I’ve just gone ten rounds with - Superman?” she asked, her vision focusing enough to take in the man next to Leslie. She didn’t exactly rub noses with the flights-and-tights set: like Bruce, metahumans made her nervous, but Selina had seen the Boy Scout’s picture in the paper often enough to recognize him. She’d even met him, once or twice. The guy at her bedside was a dead ringer for Supes, only he was dressed in a knock-off Ethan Allen suit and, for some unearthly reason, was wearing glasses.

He smiled and Selina knew it was definitely Superman. Nobody had teeth that perfect. “Leslie?” she asked uncertainly, “Why is you-know-who here?”

“Why are you whispering?” he asked in the same low tone. “Super-hearing, remember?”

Selina closed her eyes, the pounding in her head not permitting a snappy comeback. She felt Leslie’s cool palm on her forehead and Selina forced her eyes to open again.

“We almost lost you, dear,” Leslie told her. She smelled like vanilla and the cleaning solution used on surgical equipment.

“How long?” Selina asked, wishing her vision would stop doing that in-and-out thing. If she could only focus on something solid, something real…

“Nearly a week,” Leslie told her. “There was a fever, and we felt it was best to keep you sedated until the worst of the pain-”

“Was it bad?” Selina asked, preparing herself. “I mean, I’m not going to require a zippy new wheelchair, am I?”

“Let’s not discuss that right now,” Leslie decided. “We’ll wait until you can actually process what we’re telling you. You’re full of sedatives and stimulants and it’s been a very hard week. Rest, and then we’ll talk.”

“Is that your professional way of dodging the issue?” Selina asked. “Because you suck at it.”

She felt, rather than saw, Superman smile. Leslie too. “At least my sense of humor is still intact. Speaking of which, is my straight man around?”

Superman and Leslie cast each other an anxious look.

“Let me guess,” Selina tried, attempting to lift her hand. She couldn’t even feel her right arm. “He’s off righting wrongs and performing good deeds.”

Her companions were silent.

“Okay,” she tried again. “He’s down in that overgrown rabbit warren punishing himself.”

“Selina,” Leslie advised, “Bruce is-”

“You’re right,” Superman interrupted, shooting Leslie a glare never employed by mild-mannered Clark Kent. “But he’ll be up to see you soon. After you’ve rested,” he stipulated. Someone else, someone she couldn’t quite see, moved around the foot of the bed and did something to one of the machines beside the bed. In a moment, her IV was flooded with something Selina guessed would have earned her a small fortune on the streets. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and that wonderful abyss beckoned where she didn’t have to think about not being able to feel her arm or her leg. And where she didn’t have to ask for Bruce in that terrified, pleading tone.

**********************

The next time she awoke, daylight flooded the floor-to-ceiling windows of her room. She had never been in this part of the mansion. The view was (of course) spectacular and Selina guessed she could see all of Bristol Commons from her bedroom window. The bright winter sunlight illuminated every corner of the room, crowded as it was with expensive-looking medical equipment and little else. This was obviously a guest room, neutral in color and artwork. A vase of fresh flowers stood on a table by her bedside. Selina admired the delicate china vase more than the blossoms. She had never really liked the scent of flowers. They reminded her of hospitals and funerals.

The quiet beep of the heart monitor was a steady pleasant sound, letting her know she was okay. Her head felt clearer than the last time and she was actually beginning to be aware of her body again. Still no feeling in her right arm and leg, but that wasn’t really a concern. Those wonderful drugs Leslie had prescribed were probably blocking most of the pain and Selina had had enough experience with near-fatal injuries to realize that this too shall pass.

Her mind drifted as she watched the city just beyond her window and across the river. Gotham really was beautiful in the bright light, given enough painkillers. Sure, she still hated the city, but from this distance it looked actually…habitable. Like people lived there, instead of animals.

A soft knock sounded at the door and Alfred entered without waiting for a response. He smiled thinly at Selina, which she guessed the British version of a friendly grin.

“Ah, awake at last,” he said, checking the printout from the monitoring equipment. “And doing much better, I see.”

“Nice to see you too, Alfred,” she greeted, trying again to sit up. The experiment was about as successful as the last time. She might be ‘doing better’, but she was still as weak as a kitten and in no shape to spar with Bruce’s butler. “Leslie around?”

“Dr. Thompkins is at her clinic,” he replied, busily rearranging the blankets around Selina. She had resolved not to ask again for Bruce. She didn’t want the question to sound as pathetic as it did in her head.

“They said I was out for a week,” she asked, still marveling at the unconscious passage of time. “Did anyone contact my…friends?”

“I’m sure that has been taken care of,” Alfred said, meeting her eyes for the first time. “Rest, my dear. I’m sure all of your questions will be answered soon enough.”

Selina allowed herself to sink back into the pillows, the mattress conforming to her every couture. She had to give credit to Bruce (or whoever had furnished the mansion): they knew their hospital beds. “Got any good puzzles?” she asked, deciding to follow orders for now and not ask too many questions.

“I’m certain I can find something to occupy you until Dr. Thompkins returns,” Alfred promised as he left the room.

“Great,” she muttered.

******************

Time lost meaning after the third day. The hours crawled by and Selina found it too defeating to keep a clock within watching distance. She kept busy by sleeping, reading some of the wide assortment of books, magazines and newspapers Alfred supplied her with, and chatting with Superman, who turned out to be a star reporter in Metropolis and not as strict with that secret-identity business as certain other heroes.

They kept up a strange sort of repartee, a kind Selina had never shared with a man before. She had never met anyone that…open, she guessed was the right word. He was caring, concerned, and what he lacked in a sense of humor he made up for in stuttering Midwestern charm. Flirtatious insinuations didn’t play well with the Kansas farm boy, so Selina found herself actually talking with him. After the first few visits and many awkward silences, she had discovered Superman - Clark - was an interesting, intelligent conversationalist who rarely lapsed into one-word responses or sullen silences.

It made her miss Bruce even more.

On the fifth day of captivity, over a slowly-disintegrating game of Metropolis Monopoly, Selina finally worked up the courage to ask the question that had been weighing on her since she’d first regained consciousness.

“Where is he?”

Clark didn’t meet her eyes, rolling the dice badly enough to land him in jail for the third time around. Selina held most of the brightly-colored bills emblazoned with that famous LIFE cover of Superman buzzing the Daily Planet against the setting sun. Clark frowned at his tiny silver Superdog figurine in the jail square. He couldn’t even afford to finance a daring prison break.

“He’s…he’s avoiding you.”

“I figured that out for myself,” Selina said, rolling the dice with an expert flick of her wrist. She bought more real estate on Luthor Lane and put up a hotel. “Why?”

Clark shrugged, pushing back from the bedside table and rotating his shoulders more for show than because his neck was stiff. “I think he’s afraid,” he said simply. “When he sees you, he’s going to have to ask some tough questions. And he doesn’t really want to know the answers.”

“Do you think he actually works on his various neurosis, or does he improvise on the spot?”

Clark grinned, rolling again for a Get Out of Jail Free card. “I think it’s both.”

Selina pushed herself up, wincing as her shoulder erupted in pain. Leslie had finally given her a not-entirely-complete diagnosis. The bolts from the Huntress’s crossbow had pierced her shoulder and thigh. The arrow had shattered her collarbone and imbedded itself a few inches above her heart. The resulting infection and loss of blood had been of the most concern, but internal bleeding was also an issue. Luckily, both Alfred and Leslie had experience with those sort of injuries. The shot to her thigh was less serious, although it would take longer to heal. The femur was broken in a compound fracture, meaning it would be a while before Selina would be bouncing over the city’s rooftops again. She’d spent the last five days with her leg in traction with the prospect of another month or two ahead of her. And so, between the wiring in her chest, the cast on her arm and leg, and the fact that playing Monopoly with Clark Kent was the highlight of her day, Selina was miserable. She still had no idea why the Huntress had gone after her.

“When do you think he’ll get tired of hiding?” she asked lightly, claiming Clark’s last hotel in a hostile takeover bid.

“Are you sure you’re not cheating?”

Selina rolled her eyes. “I don’t think it’d be the most brilliant move to cheat on the most powerful man on the planet.”

“I’m not,” Clark replied, counting his meager funds dejectedly.

“Not what?”

“The most powerful man on the planet. I mean, if there’s some kind of disaster, I’m your man. Earthquakes, floods, train derailments…hey, there’s nobody better for the job. But when it comes to something more complicated, like serial murders or a robbery, something that requires real detective work-”

He looked up to find Selina’s eyes upon him, regarding him with empathy.

“He’s a bit intimidating, isn’t he?” she said.

Clark met her eyes. “I’m a reporter, Selina. I’m good at investigative journalism. But the work he does is fundamentally different. He’s the best strategist I’ve ever met and he’s mastered crime-solving techniques I’ve never even heard of. My father always told me to work with my strengths, and I’m at my best when I can identify a problem and do my work quickly. Bruce likes the chase, I guess. He’s just…he’s just better at some things than I am.”

“But you could beat him up,” Selina pointed out.

Clark nodded, chuckling. “You bet,” he replied, shoring up his S.T.A.R Labs holdings.

“This game is stab-yourself-in-the-eye boring, isn’t it?” Selina asked. Clark smiled, then cocked his head sharply.

“Gotta go,” he told her. “Problem in Lithuania. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll try to squeeze you in,” Selina said. “Thanks for the company.”

He was already gone.

She packed up the game, carefully erasing evidence of her secret stash of money liberated from the First Metropolis Monopoly Bank and hidden beneath a lead-lined apron Leslie used when taking X-Rays of Selina’s arm. She looked at the stolen funds, shrugged, and put everything into the box, replacing the lid. “He’ll never know,” she whispered to herself. A polite cough made her glance up at the door.

“Yes?” she asked Alfred. The butler looked uncomfortable, which was slightly disturbing.

“You have guests, madam,” he told her formally. “And they would not identify themselves. A rather ill-mannered older gentleman who insisted on smoking in the morning parlor, and a highly energetic young girl who seems rather ambivalent regarding her choice of hair color.”

“Show them in,” Selina said with a grin, joy bubbling inside. Nice to know that somebody cared when you disappeared off the face of the earth.

Alfred disappeared and in a moment Selina caught the sound of feet pounding across the carpet, followed by another set of more sedate, measured footsteps. Holly burst into the room, launching herself at Selina and throwing her arms around her. Selina didn’t even wince when Holly bumped her shoulder. She squeezed the young girl back with her good arm.

“It’s been awhile, kid,” Selina whispered, eyes burning a little as tears threatened. She looked over Holly’s head at Slam, who hovered uncertainly in the doorway, an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips. He looked rumpled and red-eyed, although he’d made an effort to shave. Selina pulled back a little from Holly’s embrace.

“Let’s get a look at you,” she said thickly, wiping away the moisture threatening in the corner of her eye. Holly tried to compose herself and failed miserably, breaking into a wide grin.

“We were so worried!” she exclaimed, bouncing up and exploring Selina’s room. “I mean, Slam found your apartment in Ultimate Destructo mode, and there was blood everywhere! We had no idea where you were, and then Slam talks to Batman and he tells us you’re ‘somewhere safe’, which couldn’t get more cryptic, y’know?” she babbled. Selina realized that Holly was nervous, although it had very little to do with seeing Selina in a hospital bed. That hardly qualified as novel. But Wayne Manor and the visible wealth that had built a corporate empire and funded an underworld war on crime was a little intimidating. Just like its owner.

Slam still hung by the door. Selina captured him with her eyes and drew him closer. “Hey stranger. Long time no see.”

He nodded, lighting a cigarette reflexively before pausing, a panicked expression stealing over his face. “I can smoke in here, right?”

Selina shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the house is No Smoking, but what’s he going to do, put you in jail?”

Holly chuckled nervously, but Slam’s expression didn’t change. He stubbed out the cigarette on his shoe. “You okay?” he asked softly. Holly finished her inspection of Selina’s digs and settled beside her on the bed, wrapping her arm around Selina gently, suddenly conscious of the traction devices holding her friend’s bones together.

Selina smiled, feeling again the unfamiliar prick of tears. This time she didn’t manage to hold it together. To her everlasting embarrassment, Selina burst into tears. Holly hugged her quickly and Slam was at her side, his strong, warm hand on her shoulder. Selina snuffled helplessly and Holly handed her a Kleenex.

“Tanks,” she managed, blowing her nose delicately. “I blame the drugs.”

“Morphine?” Holly asked with professional interest. Selina shook her head.

“Something better,” she replied.

Holly’s eyes bulged. “Really?”

Slam shook his head and Holly shut up, holding her friend tightly. “So you’re not okay,” Slam clarified, sitting beside her. Selina shook her head, done with the tears for the moment.

“I don’t know what happened, Slam, and no one will explain anything,” she told him, calmer now. Holly stroked her uninjured shoulder encouragingly. “And he-” She cut herself off before she could continue. “Look, I don’t know when I turned into this person. I don’t cry,” she assured them, and both Slam and Holly nodded in agreement. “And I certainly don’t get upset when some guy sends flowers instead of coming himself.”

Slam frowned and Holly glared at the bouquet of African daisies in the vase next to Selina’s bed.

“I just really, really need to get out of this house,” she decided. “There’s a Manson Family vibe in the air. Once I get back to the East End, do a little physical therapy, I’ll be back to my old self.”

Holly and Slam glanced at each other significantly. Selina sighed.

“What?”

“Are you sure he’ll let you leave?” Slam asked.

Selina bit her lip. “Might have to spring me.”

“Terrific,” Slam muttered, lighting a cigarette, this time deliberately. “Well, I hope you’re willing to fund a Special Ops raid on this place.”

“There’s something else you could do for me,” Selina suggested.

Holly narrowed her eyes. “Selina, I-” she began, but Selina cut her off with a sharp gesture.

Slam puffed on his Duke resignedly. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

*******************

Bruce finished cross-checking the last file. The information was complete. On the huge monitor display before him, thirty-one separate files were organized and referenced chronologically, alphabetically and grouped based on a sliding scale of priority. The missing girls from Gotham and Bludhaven were all there, floating on the hard drive. He and Oracle had managed to identify most of the girls, complete with biographies and family contact members. It was perhaps the sloppiest work Bruce had ever entered into his filing system. There were so many variables in the identity files for the girls, not to mention the lack of evidence that would prove conclusively whether they were alive or dead. But they had names now, and faces. They would be found.

One of the internal sensors in the cave picked up movement from the grandfather clock entrance. Alfred, Bruce assumed, come to offer another sandwich or a protein shake that he would not consume. This case still wasn’t making any sense, Selina’s part in it being one of several troubling variables. He’d hoped to do some research, come up with answers on his own, but everything he had came from Flannery and what Ted had told him. It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t ready to face her.

“So this is the hole in the ground I’ve heard so much about.”

Selina. Here. In the Cave. He turned in his chair, eyes widening as he watched Slam Bradley carry her down the short flight of stairs. Her plastered limbs flopped aimlessly and it was all he could do to keep from wincing as he imagined the pain she must be in. Beads of cold sweat stood out on her forehead and her eyes were too bright, the pupils dilated.

“You shouldn’t have done this,” he growled at Bradley.

Slam shrugged. “You forced her into it,” he sneered in return. Selina turned her head and whispered something to him. Bradley didn’t look happy about it, but Slam shifted his expression into neutral and headed for the medical bay. He set Selina down gently on the surgical table, straightening her leg and crossing her arm over her chest. She flinched but held it together. He went to stand by her side but Selina waved him off.

“He’ll bring me back up. I don’t want you here for this, Slam.”

Slam clenched his teeth. Clearly he wasn’t going be given a say. Much as he wanted to protect her, to take her home to the East End and to try to help her forget this whole affair, Slam merely nodded and trudged back up the stairs, his heart heavy and sick for her.

“They say you can judge a person by her friends,” Selina said in the still air of the cave. “I don’t come off too badly sometimes.” Bradley’s footsteps faded and Selina watched Bruce carefully. “Neither do you. Clark is…well, I don’t have much in common with him, but he’s the kind of person I wish I could get to know. Judging by our friends, I’d say we were both great people who had a lot to offer. I’d be lying, of course.”

She checked his expression, hungry for the sight of him again. Since that time in the shower, they hadn’t spent a night apart. She’d missed him, even if he had always left before morning. He’d lost weight, she noted. And looked a bit like one of the hobos underneath the RKM Bridge. Bruce hadn’t shaved in quite a while and she didn’t care to speculate how long it had been since he’d bathed. He was far from the dashing, emotionally-repressed vigilante who’d swept Catwoman off her feet, but Selina didn’t care. At the moment, she was just glad to see he was okay. Unhygienic, but okay.

“I need answers,” she told him, not feeling the anger she knew she was entitled to. “Everyone - Alfred, Leslie, Clark - everyone’s been waiting to see what you want to do. And you haven’t decided what you want to do with me. I’m sick of living in limbo, Bruce. So start talking.”

He opened his mouth to speak and firmly closed it again, entering the surgical bay and scouting for something in one of the many well-appointed drawers lining the facility. He returned with a pillow and a blanket. She lifted her head as he adjusted the pillow for her and waited patiently as he covered her with the blanket. “Thanks,” she said stiffly.

Bruce hovered close to her for a moment, then backed off, assuming a posture she remembered very well. The Interrogation/Intimidation stance. A Batman classic, but not one she was happy to see again. He began slowly, building up to the point like a good trial lawyer. She had no choice but to wait it out. After all, she’d brought this upon herself.

“That day at the Bradshaw house…you saw a portrait of Jessica, her father Peter and her mother Mary. And afterwards, after we…I asked you why. Why you wanted to make love in the car. You told me it was to ‘cheer me up’. I didn’t believe you. What did you see that frightened you so badly you had to force a sexual confrontation between us?”

“I didn’t ‘force’ anything,” Selina denied. “As I recall, you were a very willing partner.”

He sighed, closing his eyes. Selina was under the distinct impression that she’d blown it. She tried again. “I told you, I wasn’t frightened. I was excited.”

“By the car,” he tried. She shook her head.

“By you. Being with you. Look, I don’t enjoy sex. Never have. I use it in the same way you use violence: as a tool, not as something to take pleasure from. But it’s different with you.”

 _That’s what they all say_ , he wanted to add. “And Bradley?”

She lowered her eyes. “What about Slam?”

“Did you enjoy it? With him?”

Selina breathed in deeply, Her reply was soft and sad. “No. I knew it was wrong. It never felt that way with you."

"So how does it feel with me?"

"Like everything I’d done, everything I’d been…it all washes away and I can enjoy myself. If you believe anything, believe that.”

He didn’t accept what she was telling him. Some part of him wanted to think that what had happened between them meant something to her, but when he thought of those pictures…

Bruce went to the computer console and picked up the manila envelope containing the originals. He handed it to her and didn’t offer to help as he watched her struggle to open the envelope one-handed. As the pictures spilled out onto the bed he averted his eyes, watching her face instead. She sucked in a deep breath, taking her time as she examined each picture.

“This is a good one of me,” she said, holding up one of the Polaroids. “I guess that was…what, sixteen years ago? I was pretty limber back then.”

He felt nausea climbing the lining of his stomach. She flipped through the stack of pictures calmly, as if she were going over a family album. He supposed that she was, in a way.

“Now that was a bad idea; that position really does a number on that back. Don’t try it at home, kids,” she said lightly, going over the whole stack before looking up at him. Selina didn’t even seem to flinch when she saw the one with the broomstick.

When she finally met his eyes, it was with cool control.

“Where did you get these?” she asked, stacking the pictures neatly. He cleared his throat before replying.

“A dead cop named George Flannery.”

That name meant something to her, he saw right away. Recognition flickered in her eyes before she shuttered her expression. He continued as though he hadn’t seen it.

“He made contact with Dick.”

“The kids saw these?” she asked suddenly, her tone very different. He nodded, and she closed her eyes.

“It’s funny…I didn’t even know people had sex on beds until I was older than Tim. I thought you always stood up in back alleys, or bent over a staircase. Or used a car. There was a lot that I didn’t...” She opened her eyes again and only now could he see how badly she had been hurt. He forced himself to continue, reminding himself that she had lied to him, that he couldn’t trust her. That she was a damn good actress.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were connected to Jessica Bradshaw’s father?”

Selina startled visibly at the accusation. “Jessica Bradshaw’s father? The missing girl? I didn’t know I was.”

He stalked over to the bed and pulled the right picture from the stack, handing it to her stiffly. Selina stared at it for a while, remembering the portrait in the ruins of the Bradshaw home. She spoke softly in the voice people use when they talk of the past.

“It was blackmail,” she told him. “Most of these were,” Selina corrected, gesturing numbly at the photographs. “I’d been moved indoors for the work. There were so many in those days…this was just another operation. Some high-society type…I never knew his name. He liked pain and little girls.” Her eyes hardened. “Ask yourself why Jessica ran away, Bruce. Make the connection.”

He folded his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t remember!” she yelled, startling some of the bats in the caverns above. “Christ, we did ten, fifteen like that a day. Stan thought that…” she stopped herself. Thinking about Stan would only add another layer of anger and pain, and she had to get through this. “Peter Bradshaw wasn’t worth remembering. I wish I could tell you that men like that are unique, but they aren’t. I slept on a dirty mattress and when one would come in, I’d do what he wanted me to do, then he’d leave. Memorizing faces wasn’t a high priority. ”

Bruce blinked, surprised by the tears beginning to blur his vision. He didn’t feel it, deep in his heart. But the tears threatened anyway. He’d seen so many of those kind of places Selina had grown up in, places where childhood innocence was obliterated forever. Gotham City was a dark nest of them, a lair of pain and broken little souls. She was another victim and in his anger he’d forgotten that. Forgotten why he had become Batman in the first place. To help people like Selina Kyle.

He stepped closer to touch her hand, wondering what else he’d been wrong about. Selina jerked away from his touch. “If you try to pity me, I swear to God I’ll - I don’t want your condolences, Bruce. I never apologized for the way I am, even when you wanted me to.” Bruce backed away, giving her space. She brushed her fingers over the pictures again. “How do you know I didn’t enjoy it, hmm? That the blackmail, all of it…that it wasn’t my idea?”

“Because you were thirteen years old,” he said, disgusted with himself and what he’d suspected. “And you were starving.”

“What would you know about that?” she asked, something in her voice he hadn’t heard before. “What would you know about selling your body for food or money? Or pissing blood for a week? You’ve never even come close to that kind of desperation. I don’t know-” she hesitated, gaining a beat to make sure he got the message. “I don’t know why I thought you would be able to understand. I forgot that when you put on that cape and cowl, you’re just slumming it.”

Her words hung in the air between them, echoing through the cave off the equipment and trophies of his life’s work. Slumming, he repeated in his mind. That’s what the Mission boiled down to, for her. Slumming.

Selina swallowed hard. “Look, this is my fault. I thought you were something you’re not. I thought that, because of what happened to you when you were a kid, you’d be able to understand. But I was wrong,” she said hollowly. “You choose to put on that mask. You choose to go into the East End and rub elbows with the worst of humanity. You get to choose your life, Bruce. And when it’s over, when the sun comes up, you get to come home to stately Wayne Manor and pretend to live like a normal person. You get to choose your path. I was born to mine.”

He wanted to deny what she was saying, wanted to take her to Crime Alley and explain what it was like to watch the only thing you ever loved die. At that terrible moment, Bruce realized that he didn’t need to explain anything to her at all. She’d lost her innocence in Crime Alley too, and in state-run orphanages and pickpocket dens and brothels and prisons. It had been a single night for him. For her it had happened every day of her life.

He shuddered, at a loss.

Selina, too, seemed unwilling to continue. She had to force herself to speak.

“I respect what you do, Bruce. I always have, even though I didn’t really understand why you did it until a few years ago. I don’t think you need to experience life’s hard knocks to do something about them. Not everyone who fights child abuse was messed around with as a kid, right? Not every cop was mugged, not every doctor had to watch somebody die before they decided that they wanted to help. And you didn’t have to grow up in Crime Alley to want to become Batman. But Bruce,” she paused, timing for effect, “don’t pretend to understand it. When you fight criminals, you’re mostly fighting things like this,” she said, sweeping her hand over the photos. “People who weren’t as strong as you. People who chose survival over morality. People like me.”

“Selina…” he whispered, shaking his head, “you’re not-”

“What? A bad person? A criminal?” she guessed. “Sure I am. I’ve pulled more than a thousand jewel thefts, and those were just the solo jobs. I’ve done pretty much everything for money, Bruce, short of murder. And you suspect that I’ve even done that, so what’s left to say?”

He didn’t respond.

Selina continued, cloaking her disappointment. She spoke softly, quietly. “There are reasons why I am the way I am, Bruce. I could never afford your principles, so I settled. Compromise is the only thing I really understand.”

“And George Flannery?” he asked, trying to find his footing again. She shook her head.

“He was just some cop who handed me a phone number once. Ted had to remind me that he even existed. I was going through a bad time, doubting my choice to stay in the East End and help. Ted told me that I owed it to Flannery because George thought he’d created a monster when he helped me to live. He'd saved my life, and I'd repaid him by taking his.”

Her eyes flashed cold in the darkness of the cave. “Welcome to Selina Kyle’s crazy wheel of karma. I close my eyes, Bruce, and I can see the faces of every one I’ve ever hurt or let down. People I’ve stolen from, people who I abandoned, people I could have saved but didn’t. The reason, the only reason I thought it could work between us, was because you have a list like that too, somewhere in this cave. Your own pound of flesh that you get to take out every night and try to atone for.”

Bruce acknowledged the truth of that, thinking of good soldiers lost to forgotten battles.

“Peter Bradshaw owned the yacht that exploded in Rogers Basin,” he told her, trying to explain. “You tried to blackmail him and your prints were found at Flannery’s murder scene. Flannery’s daughter might have been trying to transport copies of those pictures,” he said, gesturing to the manila envelope, “when someone killed her on the Bristol 5:36. It all led to you,” he told her. “I had to see if you were guilty.”

“And the verdict?” she asked tiredly, as if it no longer mattered.

“I was wrong. So were Dick and Barbara. And George Flannery. You didn’t destroy his life, Selina. He assumed too much guilt for one person to bear. Guilt that was not deserved, by him or you.”

“Seems to be an occupational hazard of crime-fighting in this city,” Selina told him quietly, working back to herself. “I’m exhausted, Bruce. We’ll have to sort the rest of this out tomorrow. Take me upstairs?”

He nodded, slipping an arm gently beneath her knees, the other around her neck. She slid an arm around his shoulders and he closed his eyes at her touch. There was still a lot to process and Selina hadn’t offered any evidence that she was innocent of the crimes he’d suspected her of. But he believed in her innocence. He had faith in her.

***********************

Bruce brought her breakfast, the tinkle of fine china drawing her out of a deep, dreamless sleep. The simple meal was composed of oatmeal, orange juice and Jell-O: Selina wasn’t quite ready for solids. Bruce set the tray before her, pulling the silver serving lid off in a lackluster imitation of Alfred’s reserved panache. She fought the urge to smile.

“You look tired. Busy night?” she asked, spooning some of the oatmeal into her mouth with little appetite.

“Frieze broke out of Arkham last night. It took us nearly ten hours to bring him in.” It wasn’t why he was tired, but Bruce didn’t want her to know he’d spent the rest of the night in the cave, thinking. Going over things again, obsessing. Doing what he did best.

“I hate to suggest this,” Selina said, sipping her orange juice, “but why can’t you - Bruce Wayne philanthropist you - offer to beef up security at Arkham? Or build a new, high-tech facility like the Slab, only closer to home? The city’s local nuthouse is a bit of a joke. They seem to run a tighter ship at the Adams Institute.”

“Believe me, I’ve analyzed the problem,” he told her, more tired than defensive. They were both trying. “Tighter security at Akrham isn’t going to change the fact that guards can be bribed, surveillance equipment subverted and escape plans executed. The Arkham inmates are extremely intelligent and creative. Any measures I’ve come up with have only worked as a stop-gap device. The treatment they’re receiving is the real problem and all the money in the world can’t seem to attract the medical professionals capable of helping those people.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve given it some thought,” Selina said, watching the oatmeal drip off the end of her spoon. “Speaking of criminal masterminds, have you found the Huntress yet?”

He didn’t meet her eyes.

“Dick is looking,” he said softly.

Selina set her spoon down, biting her lip. Finally she sighed, deciding it was now or never.

“Why did you send her after me?”

Bruce turned, hurt and surprise flaring in his eyes before the walls fell into place. “I didn’t send her after you,” he told her, still dazed by the accusation and what it indicated about her feelings for him. That charge had hurt enough coming from Slam, a stranger who didn’t understand how things worked in this city. But to have Selina make the same accusation…

She shook her head, pushing herself up a little in the bed. “Look, I’ve been in Gotham long enough to know that nothing happens here without your knowledge or consent. She may be a black sheep, but Huntress is still part of your little family. Maybe you didn’t mean for it to go as far as it did, but I think I deserve an explanation.”

Her words echoed his darkest fears, that he might bear the full responsibility for Selina’s injuries. Bruce couldn’t deny that he had considered the possibility that Huntress might go after Selina if she learned of her connection to Falcone, but he hadn’t projected a scenario in which she would learn of such a thing. Slam had been right. He’d put Selina in danger. He’d failed her.

“There is a man in Bludhaven,” he said, speaking slowly. “He’s been speaking to Dick. He seems to he know everything. Calls himself the Prophet. We think he turned Flannery on to you and he sent Huntress similar information.”

“The blackmail photos?”

“Blood tests,” Bruce corrected. “DNA results. And photographs of your mother with Carmine Falcone.”

Selina felt the spoon she’d been holding clatter to the floor. The bowl of oatmeal followed. She barely seemed to notice. “What do you mean?” she asked, shock and disbelief crowding her eyes.

“Both Flannery and Huntress had proof that Falcone was your father,” he told her.

Selina lowered her head. “I never found any proof.”

He tried to decipher what it was she was feeling. Everything he had ever studied about interpreting emotional states failed him when it came to Selina. She defied such easy scrutiny.

“Why would the Huntress care?” she asked him.

“Because,” he stalled, wondering how to explain. “Because he was her father, too. And she probably believes you killed him. ”

Selina frowned. “Guess that means family reunions will be a bit awkward from now on, huh?”

He glanced at her, surprised. “I don’t see how you can joke about this.”

Selina shrugged. “What are my options? Joke or get myself a cape, a cowl and start wearing my underwear on the outside of my tights. That’s how these things tend to go, at least in this city.” She looked at him pointedly. He kept his face immobile. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she told him, then corrected herself. “Well, more than one thing, actually, but I think I’d need a flow chart and some crib notes to figure the rest of this stuff out. Why did Huntress want to kill me? I mean, we share the same DNA. So what?”

“Falcone had her family slaughtered in an effort to secure her mother in marriage. She was Catholic, and divorce wasn’t possible. Through a miscommunication, Helena was the only one left alive instead of her mother. She'd been planning Falcone's downfall ever since.”

She absorbed the story, digesting it slowly, filing it away for later consideration. “Do you ever get the feeling that Gotham is a lousy place to raise kids?”

He ignored her flippancy.

“Is Maggie in danger?” Selina asked, her bitter humor abandoned. Bruce shook his head.

“I don’t think so. I’ve put the Adams Institute on alert, and Tim’s been keeping watch. Huntress hasn’t made a move on her, and I doubt she will. The Roman wasn’t Maggie’s father.”

“Yeah, he just destroyed her life. Our life.” Selina looked up at him. “You know, after our mother killed herself, he sent flowers. And a card. Can you imagine? ‘Deepest Sympathies.’ My father finished off the better part of a bottle of scotch trying to forget that Hallmark moment.”

Bruce wasn’t surprised. Falcone had also sent flowers when the Waynes were killed. Bruce’s father had saved the Roman’s life once, an act of mercy that had impacted so many other lives. Bruce still remembered the night when men in dark suits carrying automatic weapons had interrupted the warm security of the Wayne home and demanded that his father remove a slug from Falcone’s shoulder. Afterwards, Falcone had thanked Thomas Wayne, saying he owed the family a debt. Instead, Falcone had flooded the city with the crime that had taken his parents’ lives. Selina was conceived that same year. He marveled at how intertwined their lives were, even then.

“Huntress will be brought to justice for what she did to you,” he promised Selina. Selina didn’t bother to conceal her doubt.

“For what?” she asked. “I’m legally dead, remember? And try explaining what happened to a jury. You’d be better off letting her go with a stern lecture and a warning.”

Bruce sighed, stooping to pick up the dropped spoon and bowl. “Dick will find her,” he said simply. “And when he does, I intend to do more than let her off with a warning. I should have put an end to her time as Huntress long ago. She was using an anti-coagulant on her arrows. You would have died if Tim hadn’t-”

“But I didn’t,” Selina interrupted. “So don’t obsess over it. I’ve lived through worse.”

He paused at the doorway to her room, still holding the bowl and spoon. Bruce didn’t turn to address her.

“Leslie…Leslie asked me if you were pregnant. She was worried she couldn’t save you if you were. I told her I didn’t know.”

She watched him, the way his strong back was held so rigidly, how tense and worried he was. Slowly, she began to appreciate the fear he must have been living with for the last two weeks. She knew that the intimacy growing between them had been difficult for him, and thinking of the ways in which a child would change his life, change both their lives, made her feel a little sick.

“I wasn’t pregnant,” she told him. “And I don’t intend to be.”

Bruce turned, the bowl forgotten in his hands. “I should have planned for-”

“We’re not the first people to tumble into bed together and forget to bring a condom,” Selina said quietly. “So don’t beat yourself up for not being prepared. I wasn’t either. It’s just not something we should make a habit of. Next time…”

His eyes met hers. Selina smiled at him. “I hope there’s going to be a next time,” she said. “Our emotional constipation aside, I don't want to give you up.”

“I thought that-”

“The truth is,” she interrupted, as if she hadn’t heard him, not wanting to hear him say that he wanted to end it between them. “The truth is, I’m too selfish to give you up.”

He nodded slowly and she grinned. “You could at least pretend to deny that.”

“I’ve never been very good at lying,” he told her, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He looked…relieved, she decided. And about ten years younger. Maybe he got something out of what they had together. Something more than an orgasm, anyway. Before she could consider what, exactly, that might be, he left the room, trotting off down the hall to deliver her dishes to the kitchen and get some sleep. Selina was left alone with her thoughts, happier than she’d been in days.

*****************


	9. In TriCorner Yards

Dick had checked everywhere: Grant Park, Robbinsville, the R&R tubes…he’d even schlepped it out to Midway to see if Helena had been hiding out in the vast, empty plains of farmland between Gotham City and Metropolis. Nothing. And Dick knew he had to find Helena before Bruce located her.

He’d spent the last few nights down in the Tricorner Yards, working his last connection to Huntress. Helena had a friend down here…well, an acquaintance, at any rate. Helena didn’t really have friends. She had allies, people she’d alienated, and enemies. Dick hadn’t even seen that Vic guy around lately, the one Barbara had privately nicknamed Baghead.

The Yards were silent, the freight cars ghostly white boxes beneath the steadily falling snow. Christmas would hit in a few weeks, with its usual round of gala fundraising events and holiday murder sprees. He was sorry Alfred hadn’t been allowed to host Thanksgiving at Wayne Manor: it meant the butler would insist on a family Christmas. The thought of the awkward silences alone gave Dick a headache. Christmas was always the worst, always the time they just wanted to concentrate on work and not think about what the Mission had cost them.

“Any sign of her?”

“Yikes!” Dick cried, turning quickly. “You could at least warn a guy.”

Batman stepped forward from the shadows along the eastern wall of the yard. “You should have known I was there.”

Dick resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at Bruce. “I’m a little preoccupied. And no, Helena hasn’t shown. I don’t think she’s even in Gotham anymore.”

“Has the Oracle found anything to indicate that? Withdrawls on Helena’s accounts? Travel arrangements made under one of her known aliases?”

“Like you haven’t already checked that out yourself,” Dick grumbled. “But no, none of that’s come up on Bab’s radar. Helena’s just gone. She must have known you’d come after her for murder, especially if she has any clue who Selina is.”

“I doubt that she does,” Batman said, scanning the yard. “Helena was never a detective.”

“She’s better than you think,” Dick replied, crouching down, studying the track patterns beneath the snow. “How’s Selina?”

“Fine,” Batman grunted.

Dick looked at him, trying to distinguish Bruce’s tall profile from the shadows of the freight yard. “Did she kill him? Did she kill Flannery?”

“No,” he said simply.

“And the…the photos?” Dick asked, shutting off the part of his mind that wanted to recall those images. He couldn’t fathom what participating in something that sick and degrading could do to a person. Catwoman had always been overtly sexual: the leather-and-whip inspired costume was not an exercise in subtlety. But somehow the idea that Selina Kyle might have once been a scared, abused kid had never occurred to Dick. The very thought of it made him uncomfortable, mostly because he didn’t know what it meant to Bruce that the woman he’d been sleeping with had had those kind of experiences. Sex with Barbara had always been loving and tender. Selina, at least in those blackmail pictures, didn’t seem capable of the kind of normal responses Dick ascribed to sexuality. Maybe there was something wrong with Bruce, he theorized. Some crossed wiring that made him go to bed with a woman who couldn’t enjoy anything but pain and humiliation.

“What about the pictures?” Batman growled, letting Dick know he was pushing it.

“Were they real? Did she really-”

Batman turned away, looking north to the heart of Gotham for the Signal. “They were real.”

Dick shook his head, sorry for Bruce. “And what-”

“I don’t want to discuss it,” Batman replied, ending the conversation. He dropped into a trench running alongside the tracks criss-crossing the freight yard, his light thermal boots leaving few traces in the snow covering the gravel around the rail ties.

“What is it?” Dick asked, following him. “Did you pick up on something?”

Batman didn’t respond and kept moving north along the tracks to a cluster of abandoned train cars rusting in the snow. He came to a halt before the freight cars, considering them carefully, his head cocked slightly.

“Hello, son,” the Prophet’s warm, mellow tones greeted them from the dark. “Wondering when we would find each other again. And you’ve brought the Father with you.”

“You’ve relocated,” Dick pointed out, glancing at Bruce. Batman didn’t look at him, busily scanning the empty cars with the heat sensor embedded in his night vision goggles. “The ’Haven get too hot for you? Because Gotham’s a pressure cooker.”

“I was needed here,” the Prophet said simply, his voice all around them. “You have questions.”

“Why did you send George Flannery those files?” Batman asked, his attention fixed on a spot beneath one of the overturned cars. “You used his daughter Janine as a courier; she was murdered before she reached Bristol with the information and so you sent Flannery the files on Selina some other way.”

The Prophet took a moment to respond. “He did not receive The Word from me,” he finally replied. “It was a calculation, a chess move. The girl was a piece on the board. So was Flannery, and your lady Archer.”

Dick shot Bruce a questioning look regarding the chess metaphors. Checkmate again? Batman shook his head. Someone else.

“Who?” Batman asked. “Who sent Flannery and Huntress those files?”

“The Dark Man belongs to the Other and was told to make you believe I had sent the information.”

“Why?”

“There is a war brewing,” the Prophet said, coming out of the shadows beneath one of the rail cars where Batman had expected he was hiding. His little wooden cart left deep indentations in the snow as he pushed himself towards Dick. “The Other is marshalling, even now. And I’m an old man. Too tired to fight. The business with the Dark Man, the Archer…it was sloppy work. I couldn’t feel it. And we almost lost the one weapon which will allow us to win this war.”

“The Archer?” Dick repeated, catching only half of what the Prophet was saying, hoping Bruce was doing a little better. “Huntress, you mean? You didn’t know she’d go after Selina?”

“I couldn’t see it,” the Prophet repeated. “There is a darkness around her. I cannot see. Neither can the Other. She had to be taken out of the war, because she is an unknown. And nothing scares us more than something we can’t see.”

“You’re talking about Selina?”

The Prophet furrowed his brow, the wrinkled brown skin on his forehead folding into a thousand peaks and valleys. “Trust the child,” he repeated. “I cannot see further than that.”

Dick cleared his throat, shifting his posture uneasily.

“We need something more than that,” Batman told the Prophet sharply. “Evidence, proof that this ‘Other’ exists. Because if not, you’re an accessory to the attack on Selina, and involved in Janine and George Flannery’s deaths. You will pay for what you’ve done.”

“You love her,” the Prophet whispered, ignoring Bruce’s threats, looking into the hollow white eyes of the Batman. “Your path will be hard. There will be more pain. The future…” he sighed. “We stand at a crossroads. Between the darkness of the future and the light of the past.” The Prophet turned to Dick, jerking his head towards Bruce. “I don’t think he’ll know which way to turn. You’ll have to help him.”

Dick shot another uncertain look at Bruce, not sure how to react. Batman spoke softly. “Why did you come to him? Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“Because he walks the path of righteousness,” the Prophet told him, echoing what he’d already told Dick. “His future is secure. He has walked that knife-edge of darkness with you but has not been cut as deeply.”

Dick crouched down to the Prophet’s level. “Are we in danger?”

The Prophet looked at Batman again, regarding him carefully. “They are mated,” the Prophet declared, shaking his head. “I cannot see what it means. The children of the night shall forever find each other in the dark. I can’t see…” he said, fear coloring his voice. “But neither can the Other. And I take solace in that fact, as should you. Both of you.”

Batman crossed his arms, frustrated. “That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s all I can tell you,” the Prophet replied, placing his hands on either side of his little board. “Better go. Trouble at the River.”

The Signal lit the sky, high over Gotham. Batman turned from it to the Prophet. “We’ll talk later,” he promised, shooting a line that would carry him over the high wire fence running around the rail yard. Dick glanced back at the silent yard.

The Prophet was gone.

*******************

They held council in the Watchtower, in costume, as formal a mission briefing as possible under the circumstances. Dick was narrating their encounter with the Prophet, his eyes constantly on Batman’s still, listening for a hint of disapproval or contradiction. For some reason, Bruce didn’t want to take point on this one.

“He buries everything in metaphor. I couldn’t make sense out of most of it, but he did say a war was brewing. With someone or something called the Other. And he thinks Selina is the key: that’s why Flannery and Huntress went after her. This Other wants Selina taken out of the equation.”

Oracle tapped something on her keyboard, a screen popping up on the display a moment later. “The Other, huh? It doesn’t even show up on Google.”

“Is this connected to the missing girls?” Tim asked, his detective instincts more finely-honed than Dick’s. “I mean, did the Prophet say anything about them?”

“I don’t think so,” Dick replied, frowning. “Hard to tell, I guess. I just…I shouldn’t have been the one to talk to him. If he’d gone to you, or Bruce-”

“But he didn’t,” Batman replied, his gravely voice projecting from the shadows. “He chose you. And he did that for a reason. He’s a metahuman, a telepath. J’onn picked him up three weeks ago.”

“Why weren’t we told about that?” Barbara asked, wondering why she’d been kept out of the loop. J’onn usually came to her first about Gotham-related metahuman activity. The Martian Manhunter knew how Batman felt about advanced humans and their unearned powers. He regarded each emerging metahuman as a threat to be taken out. Barbara preferred to give each emerging meta a chance to prove themselves as either friend or foe before plotting their downfall.

“Superman came to me with a warning from J’onn. There has been a telepathic powerhouse gathering in Gotham, assembling for a reason J’onn couldn’t divine. He detected two distinct entities, more diverse and potent in their telepathy than J’onn had ever encountered before. Your Prophet was one. And the Other is the second, primary threat.”

“What makes you think the Other is a bigger threat than the Prophet?”

“Because the Prophet came to us,” Batman replied. “Selina isn’t aware of any of this. She had no idea why Helena attacked her, or that George Flannery had those files. The whole thing was engineered to make us lose trust in her.”

“Well,” Barbara interrupted, “it’s hard to lose something you’ve never had, but we get the point. Selina’s part of this, whether she knows it or not. Now, how do we figure out her part in this?”

“We don’t,” Batman replied, drawing himself up to his full height. “She is no longer involved.”

His decision was announced in that tone of command rarely employed since before Vesper’s murder. Since then, Bruce had made an effort to include them in his decisions regarding cases. It was clear that they were not going to be consulted.

“Have you considered what will happen if the Other tries to attack her again?” Barbara asked. “How are you going to protect her if you’re trying to limit what she knows?”

Batman shot Barbara a sharp glare but she didn’t back down. “If what the Prophet told us is true, if what J’onn suspects is right, then the Other knows everything about us. Who we are, how we operate… You won’t be able to prevent something like that getting to Selina. I say we use her as bait, lure this thing out into the open.”

Dick and Tim exchanged worried glances. Barbara may be in a better position to question Bruce’s decision - after all, she had never thought of him as a father-figure - but they knew that you did not argue with Batman when he used that tone.

“I will not put her at risk,” Batman finished.

“She’s already at risk!” Barbara cried, wanting him to see reason. She wheeled herself closer to him, trying to break through the same wall she’d been butting up against since she was a kid with a Batpurse. “How are we supposed to fight something that can see the future? This is a JLA-level threat, not something you can ignore and hope goes away. We’re under attack, maybe because of Catwoman. Are you willing to sacrifice everything we’ve worked for to protect Selina Kyle?”

“I would take any measures to preserve a life,” he told them all. “I have always been willing to do whatever is necessary to protect an innocent.” He shot Barbara a glare, daring her to contradict him and say that Selina was anything but. “Everything else is irrelevant.”

“Is it true?” Barbara asked, clenching her teeth. “Is what the Prophet said true? Are you ‘mated’ to her? Is that why-”

“Babs, just drop it,” Dick told her.

Barbara fixed him in an angry stare, and when she spoke, her tone was liquid ice. “He is putting it all at risk, and she isn’t worth it. If this Other attacks and someone dies because we’re too busy worrying about Catwoman to take action-”

“That won’t happen,” Batman said sharply. “End of discussion.”

*****************


	10. Christmas

The day before Christmas dawned dark and ugly. The sun rose late under thick black clouds, and what little light penetrated the cloud cover was thin and sickly, its anemic light contrasting sharply against the rich, cheerful colors of the season. The light was fitting: Christmas in Gotham usually meant a body count. The Joker was under tight security at the Slab in Antarctica and most of the usual head cases were behind bars in Arkham, but Gothamites couldn’t shake the sick feeling of nervous dread Christmas afforded in the mad city. The wounds of previous holidays were still fresh in the public’s mind.

Bruce spent the day in town at a Wayne Enterprises board meeting. Another member of the executive committee had died, this time a self-inflicted death. Lucius had made the announcement with a sad, downcast expression. “It’s the holidays,” he’d shrugged. “Makes people unhappy. They can only think of the things they haven’t got.”

It had taken a thirty-second vote to determine the man’s replacement on the board.

Afterwards, Bruce sat quietly in his office, watching the city from his enormous windows. Every muscle was tense and he had to consciously monitor his breathing and heart rate. Christmas until January 20th was the worst time of the year, both for Batman and Bruce Wayne. With all the distractions about Selina, George Flannery’s murder and Huntress’ disappearance, the holidays had crept up on him. It was like putting a frog in a saucepan full of water and slowly turning up the heat; the frog wouldn’t notice how hot the water was until he boiled alive. Bruce hadn’t noticed the advancing days of the calendar, and now it was too late to jump. He hadn’t prepared for Christmas.

“Happy Chanukah, Mr. Wayne,” his secretary chirped, sliding a brightly-wrapped package across the polished surface of his desk. For a moment, he saw Dick’s manila envelop there in front of him. Bruce didn’t move to take the gift. Meredith looked hurt but covered it well.

“I…I hope you have a good Christmas,” she said, pulling on her coat. Bruce nodded at her, turning back to watch the windows and the city below. He didn’t hear her leave.

At two o’clock he decided to head back to the Manor. Sunset would come tonight at 5:15, earlier than usual for this time of year. He forced himself to watch as his driver guided the limo through the throng of holiday shoppers filling downtown Gotham. Happy families, holding hands and bags of gifts, chasing after their children. Innocent citizens scurrying home. Singles frantically trying to catch a cab to the hot club parties set for later that evening. He watched them in their bright, tinselly joy, reminding himself what would be lost from the world if he made one single mistake in the hours to come. There could be no slip-ups tonight. A Christmas had never passed in Gotham without some horrible, bloody crime to mark it. In his first year in costume, the Holiday killer had been active and signed his Christmas crime with a cheap plastic snow-globe. Since then, various criminal masterminds, petty thieves and mass murders had all chosen December 24th as a night of violence and bloodshed. The holiday hadn’t meant anything to him since he was eight years old but Bruce was determined to ensure that Christmas this year was significant only for the peace which with it had passed. There would be no New Years Eve memorial services in Gotham, that he promised.

Alfred had erected a massive Douglas Fur in the living room at the manor. Ablaze with a thousand brightly-colored lights and shining porcelain ornaments, the tree was as gaudy and joyful as the season was supposed to be. Bruce tried not to look at it. There had been a Christmas tree in the Wayne home like it for nearly nine generations and Alfred had not altered tradition no matter what the circumstance. Bruce thought that the tradition had only made sense when Dick, Jason or Tim had been living at the manor.

He found Leslie and Alfred in the kitchen, murmuring to each other quietly over mugs of steaming cocoa. Alfred’s kitchen was warm and quiet. It had been Bruce’s favorite room in the house as a child. He hesitated at the doorway, not knowing what he was interrupting. Alfred stood almost immediately, straightening his waistcoat.

“Do you require anything, sir?” he asked. Bruce shook his head, opened his mouth to speak and then turned to leave them in privacy. Leslie stood, her chair scrapping lightly against the rich red tile floor. Bruce turned and watched as she poured a mug of steaming cocoa, handing it to Bruce.

“Merry Christmas,” she said to both men. After a moment, Bruce took the cup from her as Alfred reclaimed his. The three of them rose their cocoa in a toast, drinking the hot liquid slowly.

Leslie glanced at the darkening windows in the kitchen. “I should get back to the clinic before the snow starts to fall,” she said quietly. “I’m sure I’ll be needed back in the city. Plenty of babies will be born tonight; they seem to know when only the free clinic doctors are on duty.”

Alfred smiled tightly. He knew what Leslie hadn’t said: certainly babies would be born tonight, in taxi cabs and elevators and subways and apartment buildings. People would be dying, too. In the war zone of the East End, Leslie’s Park Row Clinic was the nearest medical aid until Robbinsville. Many people would come to her tonight in pain and despair and she would lose some of them. She took another sip of her cocoa, dealing with the knowledge of what tonight would bring in her own quiet way.

“Have a good night,” she said to both men. “Be safe,” she said, touching Bruce’s cheek. “And get some rest,” she told Alfred, squeezing his hand. The butler nodded, dipping his head slightly. She surprised him by raising herself up on her tiptoes and planting a soft, hesitant kiss on his lips. Alfred returned the affection gently, touching her shoulder lightly to help steady her balance. Bruce watched them, aware of the currents flowing beneath the exchange. She needed Alfred’s strength for the difficult night ahead. Bruce wondered how long it had been since he’d watched people comfort one another and not thought it excessive or unnecessary. During his first years as Batman a display like this from someone in his inner circle would have displeased him. Now it only made his heart ache.

Leslie lowered herself, flat-footed again but unwilling to let go of Alfred’s hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she promised and Alfred nodded. Leslie turned, heading for the kitchen’s service entrance where her car was parked. An awkward silence descended between the two men, broken only by the crunch of gravel under her car’s tires as she pulled away.

“Tomorrow night?” Bruce asked. Alfred didn’t look at him as he moved to clear the cocoa mugs away.

“Dinner with family, sir. Attendance is mandatory.”

Bruce closed his eyes, remembering suddenly Alfred’s insistence on a meal with all of them together: Dick and Barbara, Cassandra, Tim and Jack Drake, James Gordon and Leslie. His misery had created such strange company in the years since taking in Dick.

Bruce sighed. “You know that it might need to be cancelled if…”

“I have prepared myself for the possibility of seeing another fine meal ruined by your nocturnal activities,” Alfred assured him dryly, placing the cocoa mugs into the dishwasher. “You did promise, Master Bruce.”

“I’m not sure it will be much fun this year,” Bruce warned him, thinking of the look in Barbara’s eyes at the meeting in the clock tower. And Dick’s questioning of him, Tim’s quiet unease.

Alfred sniffed in displeasure. “When is it ever fun, Master Bruce? It is a family gathering. Fun is very far from the point.”

Alfred checked that the kitchen was in order and headed for Bruce’s study, which was not about to dust itself. “Miss Kyle is awake,” the butler thought to mention, his voice carrying down the hall. “And I am sure she would appreciate your company much more than the kitchen sink.”

******************

Bruce knocked softly at her door, entering when he heard Selina’s muffled ‘come in’. She was curled up in bed, reading. The traction devices supporting her leg and shoulder had finally been removed today.

“What’s that?” he asked and Selina held up her book obligingly so he could read the title. “Herodotus?”

Selina shrugged, marking her page with a bookmark bearing the dubious declaration ‘Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from My Cat’. “A translation. I saw the original Greek in your library, but I’m still struggling with Latin.”

He stared at her for a moment too long and she smiled, shaking her head. “Don’t look so stunned. Library cards were always free, Bruce. I didn’t need to go to Harvard to learn to appreciate Herodotus.”

“Was it learned?” he asked her. She shook her head, honest about her lack of education.

“Taught. A…a friend told me that if I was going to be a successful con artist and cat burglar, I’d have to fit in with you high-society types. Imagine my shock when I discovered that most of them were tutored at home and had never heard of Herodotus. Or Milton. Or Achebe, for that matter. You’re a rarity in your class, Bruce. In more ways than one.”

He lowered his head, the soapy basin of water he’d been holding sloshing slightly in reaction. He looked up to find Selina’s questioning eyes upon him. He shrugged, schooling his face into its accustomed mask of total neutrality.

“Leslie thought you might want a bath.”

Selina smiled, her beautifully-shaped lips pulling back to reveal small, gleaming white teeth. She had a lovely smile, more so when it was seductive than sincere. She was a cat, and sincerity never did look quite right on a feline.

“When are you going out?”

He knew what she was asking. It was a relief that he didn’t have to lie to her about that, at least. “After sunset. 5:15.”

“And it will be bad tonight, won’t it?” she asked him. He nodded stiffly.

Selina set her book down, smoothing the blankets over her body. He tried not to watch as the sheets pulled lower, revealing perfect breasts straining against the material of her thin silk nightgown. Bruce coughed, clearing his throat. He set the basin of water down and removed the suit jacket he’d worn for the Wayne board meeting, undoing the cuffs of the white dress shirt and loosing his tie. He rolled the sleeves up, revealing heavily-muscled forearms dusted with dark hair and white scars. Her eyes were fixed on his face. Heat coiled inside her and Selina shifted again on the bed, the heavy weight of the casts on her arm and leg seeming to belong to someone else. It had been much, much too long.

He helped her to sit up, pulling the silk nightgown up and over her head, carefully guiding the plaster cast covering her arm through the smooth, soft material. Bruce admired her breasts covertly, returning his eyes to her face after a second-long glance. She grinned up at him. “I thought you had a photographic memory. Don’t tell me you forgot what they look like.”

He frowned at her, going to the basin to wring out the washcloth he’d brought. When he turned to her again, the teasing smile was gone, replaced by arousal and something he couldn’t identify. She had shifted her hips a little to the side of the bed and he sat behind her, touching the wet cloth gently to her back. Selina’s skin was soft and white, the few scars marring her flesh small and inconsequential. He drew the warm cloth across her bare skin and she shivered slightly, tipping her head to give him better access to her neck.

“What do you want for Christmas?” she whispered, her eyes closed. Bruce didn’t reply, not quite trusting his voice.

Selina raised her arm and he slipped the cloth beneath it and down her left side, his hand tracing the full, soft curves of her body. His touch lingered, perhaps too long, on the underside of her breast. She grew impatient with the washcloth, wanting to feel his skin on hers. Selina opened her eyes and settled back against his chest, turning her head. When she spoke, her breath feathered against his ear.

“What do you want?”

Bruce leaned forward, abandoning her breasts to wash her arm. She watched the movement of his strong, sure hands, feeling the heat of his body through his thin shirt. Selina wished he would remove it.

“I’m not sure,” he finally replied. His voice was dark and rough, stone scraping against rock. “What do you want?”

She closed her eyes, reaching up with her good arm to twine her fingers through his dark hair. The movement forced her to arch her back and he couldn’t help but gaze at her breasts, the nipples pink and erect against the whiteness of her skin. He finally surrendered, dropping the washcloth into the basin on the table beside him. Bruce placed his warm palms over her breasts, reveling in the heavy weight of them. He trailed a line of soft kisses down her neck and discovered her mouth, open and inviting.

Selina twisted, using the weight of the plaster cast on her leg to help her momentum until she met his mouth more fully. Her tongue darted inside the hungry wetness of his mouth, igniting a fire that traveled the length of his body to his groin. Bruce deepened the kiss, his hands abandoning her breasts to cup the base of her neck. She shifted her knee, bringing it up into contact with his hand, hoping he’d get the point.

Bruce trailed his hand from her knee up the inside of her thigh. Her skin felt like satin. He found the warm, moist heat of her. Responding to the first, shattering glide of his thumb, Selina moaned, arching her back again. She opened her mobile leg wider to receive him and sank back into the hard muscle of his chest. He watched her face, slowly increasing the tempo of his movements to match her labored breathing. Selina’s face was a study in surprised wonder and he wondered why she had never asked him to-

“Stop and I’ll kill you,” she promised hoarsely, and he obliged, massaging her slick, white-hot center. Her fingers curled in his hair, grasping at the roots until it became painful. She seemed to realize what she was doing and loosened her hold, although he barely noticed. She was too beautiful to watch. He marveled at her unselfconscious enjoyment of what he was doing to her body. She let out a cry, near the peak and he kissed her deeply, cutting off the sound before it could carry from the room. Her body was pulsating with heat and energy. He could feel her heartbeat in her mouth.

Finally she came, her orgasm translating into a deep, animal cry of pleasure. She fell back against him, still breathing heavily. He retrieved his hand, kissing her to relieve the sudden ache created by its absence. Selina looked at him, really looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. What he saw reflected in those deep emerald eyes made him catch his breath.

“Sure, but what will you give me for New Year’s?” she laughed, brushing at her forehead weakly. “Whew.”

He tried to rise but she caught his arm and held him, fixing him in place behind her with surprising insistence. “The sun hasn’t gone down yet.”

“I know,” Bruce replied. “There are preparations-”

“And they can wait. Could you…could you just let me enjoy you for a second?”

He looked at her, Selina’s slick body glistening in the room’s low light, so exquisite and sated and feminine. Bruce was glad she’d stopped him from going. She twisted again, lying against him on her stomach, her damaged leg jutting out in a straight line, the other bent, toes curled. “Thanks,” she told him, her eyes shining. Selina crossed her forearms and rested her chin on them, positioned against the hard muscle of his biceps. She still didn’t like the fact that he was wearing a shirt. Bruce had a beautiful body, scars aside, and Selina very much wanted to see it.

Bruce tilted his head, opening his mouth to speak. Instead of asking her what he’d wanted, he stroked the silken skin of her back, his thumb exploring muscle and the fragile bones of her shoulder blades. The cast on her collarbone was hard plaster, unpleasant to the touch and offensive to his guilty conscience.

“I can see directly up your nose right now,” she pointed out from her position just beneath his chin. Bruce raised an eyebrow. “And I still want an encore. Guess you’re pretty good at what you do.”

He forced himself to ask her something he’d wondered since that first night in the shower. “Why didn’t you ask me to do something like that before?”

Selina raised her head, a little taken aback by the question. Bruce was probably the only man who would ever put a question like that so bluntly. She only briefly entertained the thought of refusing to answer him. There were enough secrets between them already.

“I wasn’t sure you’d know what to do and I didn’t want you to be embarrassed,” she told him. Bruce didn’t respond, a silent, very Batman-like prompt to continue. “You said it wasn’t a long list,” she explained, shrugging.

“And your resume is extensive,” he added softly, hating the flare of pain in her eyes but wanting her to feel some fraction of what he’d gone through when Dick had shown him those pictures.

Selina blinked, trying to understand him. Bruce didn’t sound angry and his comment hadn’t sounded like an accusation. She resolved to play it as he’d probably intended that little bon mote: an attack. “Which means, as the experienced partner, I have to think for both of us,” she told him. “Consider my own pleasure in proportion to your feelings and abilities. Have you ever tried that?”

“What?”

“Thinking of what someone else might be feeling?”

He flinched, closing his eyes. She didn’t lift her body off his chest, which he took as some sign that the situation might be salvaged. “I-”

“Bruce, you really aren’t good with people,” she told him, scratching her eyebrow, wondering how to react. Any other man, and she’d be gone. But between the cast on her leg and the broken collarbone, she wasn’t about to attempt a dramatic exit. Which limited her options. And Selina Kyle hated any kind of restriction.

“Was there something you wanted me to do?” she said, after considering her options in silence. Might as well act like an adult and see how that goes, she thought.

“What do you mean?” he asked hesitantly.

“Do you want me to…” and she cast her eyes downward in the direction of his lap. Bruce’s hand on her back stilled. “I’ll bet you’re kicking yourself for not thinking of that a month ago,” she smiled. “I didn’t want to do something you’d find unpleasant,” Selina explained.

“I doubt many men find that unpleasant.”

She shrugged again, and he felt the skin tighten and relax over those beautifully-shaped shoulders. “You’d be surprised. I thought we’d just stick with the missionary position, take it from there. I’d like it put into the official record that you’re the one who chose to expand our sexual horizons.”

“Selina-” he said through clenched teeth, wondering what had gotten into her, “I didn’t plan-”

“Plans aren’t going to work between us,” she said flatly, her eyes softening slightly. “There’s a lot you’ve got to learn, pal. About me, about women in general. And about yourself.”

He didn’t try to deny what she’d said but her words made his ears burn slightly in embarrassment. Bruce prided himself on always having a backup plan, but when it came to sex, he’d never found it necessary to have even a Plan A. None of his enemies had ever truly used sex against him, save perhaps Poison Ivy. And Catwoman, of course.

“Now,” she said, a hyperbolic yawn escaping her mouth, “I think you’ve got a city to save tonight. Sunset in half an hour, remember?” Selina pushed up and off his chest, freeing him of her pleasant weight. He looked at her as she sat upright, her breasts full, round globes, her skin pink and healthy, her hair and eyes luminous. He’d always admired her beauty and her sexuality, but the two had never been so fully united for him until that moment. Bruce realized that the girl in those bondage pictures, that thin, frightened, victimized adolescent, had nothing to do with the woman before him. Selina had let the past go, at least part of it. She was capable of a healthy physical relationship despite what had been done to her as a child. And he, at 37, still blushed when she mentioned oral sex. He did have a lot to learn.

*******************

Christmas Eve, for once, was quiet. Perhaps it was because of his choice of partner. Cassandra Cain, clad from head-to-toe in the black Batgirl costume, was a more silent and deadly presence among the shadows of Gotham than even he. She moved with the terrible purpose her father’s training had instilled in her, but it was tempered by mercy. Cassandra Cain had taken a life many years ago, and she bore the guilt of it like she lived her life: silently.

“Good?” she asked him at sunrise, just as their patrol was ending. That single word was the first time she’d spoken all night. Barbara was slowly coaxing her to vocal expression but Cassandra rarely spoke to him. She admired his abilities as Batman and, like the other young heroes he’d trained, she thought of him as a father-figure, but Cassandra had little interest in relationship outside their costumed identities. It had made her a good partner this evening: she had not attended the meeting in the Clock Tower and was unaware that Selina even existed. It had made for a blessedly distraction-free evening.

“Good,” he agreed, looking out over the sleeping city. The cold morning wind stung against the fresh bruises layering his face. One eye was swollen shut and his lip was split. One of the men they’d encountered in a Midtown alleyway had managed to grab him, letting his partner work on his face, for the few crucial seconds it took for Batgirl to get into position and check the safety of the two security guards the gang had tied up in the warehouse backing onto the alley. When they’d first arrived Batman had thought the guards were dead. It was worth the cracked rib and black eye to make sure no Christmas blood had been spilt that night.

Batgirl admired the Gotham skyline and he knew the day meant even less to her than it did to him. Christmas was just a day on the calendar for Cain’s daughter. He didn’t doubt that Barbara was planning some sort of festive celebration to teach her about Christmas later that morning, but privately he disapproved of Barbara’s endeavors to humanize Cassandra. She a more effective crime fighter because she was divorced from humanity in so many ways, the sort of young partner Batman wished he had always been able to take on and train. Cassandra understood remorse and need for redemption so important to this quest. Dick, Barbara, Tim…even Jason, had never needed their masks for the same reasons he and Cassandra did.

Batman turned to Batgirl, nodded, and leaped off the building, heading for the Batmobile. He knew she would make for her satellite cave, change, and go to the Clock Tower because Barbara had asked her to. Cassandra Cain was nothing if not obedient.

The drive back to Bristol was much less anxious than the drive into the city had been. He was still worried about a Christmas-day caper, or even a Boxing Day crime spree, but December 24th had passed in relative peace and he was exhausted. It took two and a half hours to remove the costume, have Alfred bandage his wounds, enter the night’s events in his criminal activities report and read over J’onn’s messages from the JLA base. The Martian Manhunter had pulled watch duty over the holidays; other than Bruce, none of the other heroes were willing to be apart from their families over Christmas. Bruce had been unaccountably relieved when J’onn had volunteered for the duty, and he chalked it up to Selina’s continued presence in the Manor. He could not afford to forget the threats made against her, or through her, by what the Prophet had called the Other.

At 10:30am he left the cave, satisfied that everything was prepared for tonight’s patrol. Bruce made his way up the grand staircase, catching a whiff of slowly-cooking turkey coming from the kitchen. Alfred had already begun to prepare tonight’s dinner. Bruce made a conscious effort not to think about the coming encounter around the Wayne grand dining table, turning left at the top of the stairs instead of right. He wanted to see Selina before he retired, if only to ensure that her night had passed in safety and comfort.

Her room was deserted when he knocked on the door and he checked the bathroom. Nothing. Puzzled, the first icy fingers of fear closing around his heart, Bruce searched the rest of the guest quarters. Her bed was neatly made up, the sheets perfectly aligned. All of the clothing he’d provided for her was in place, and the rest of the room was in good order. He resisted the urge to bellow for Alfred, fear sparking in his heart as he went back down the hall towards his quarters on the other side of the mansion.

Selina was asleep in his bed, her soft breathing an unfamiliar sound in this, his most private place. He could count on one hand the number of times other people had been in this room besides himself and Alfred. Bruce tried to summon the energy to be offended by her invasion. Instead he rubbed his sore shoulder, debating whether he should wake her. She looked so peaceful, her sleep undisturbed by nightmares. He envied her that. Insomnia and terrible dreams had plagued him for thirty years and only rarely had Bruce enjoyed more than a few hours of sleep. Truthfully, it was one of the many reasons why Batman patrolled at night: it gave him a way to fill the long, sleepless hours before morning.

Selina stirred slightly and he made his decision. Bruce didn’t bother with the ceremony of pajamas and shrugged off his robe, slipping into bed beside her, nude but for the bandages around his ribs Alfred had placed there earlier. Selina sighed softly in her sleep, rolling towards him across the wide expanse of white mattress and soft Irish linen. He slipped his arm between her neck and the curve of her shoulder, wrapping the other tightly around her midsection. She seemed to approve, pressing her back against his chest and fitting her hips against his while still asleep. Bruce breathed in the fragrance of her hair, a warm, flowery scent that he couldn’t begin to place. Vesper had worn two perfumes mixed together. Shondra Kinsolving had smelled like vanilla. Sasha had preferred the clean, simple scent of green apples. But Selina wore nothing, offering only the intoxicating, natural scent of her own body. It was, privately, the one he most enjoyed.

It was a strange thing to sleep with another person next to you, Bruce discovered. The rhythms of her breathing were peaceful and she moved only slightly in her sleep. He held her stiffly at first, careful not to wake her, but Bruce gradually relaxed and fitted himself more tightly against her body, closing his eyes. It had been a very long, tense night, and to come home to Selina offered more comfort than he would have expected. Slowly, he drifted into a light doze and then finally, for the first time in three weeks, fell into a deep slumber.

*****************

Selina awoke on Christmas Day at five in the afternoon, Bruce’s body tight against hers, his hand splayed protectively over her stomach. She watched him sleep, noting that she had never before seen him do so. His strong, dark features were no less handsome in repose but he frowned darkly even in slumber, marring the male perfection of his face. Selina noted with curiosity the fresh bruises on his face, knowing he’d probably tell her about it later. She wondered how he managed to maintain his brooding, intimidating demeanor and snore at the same time.

She’d seen his bedroom before, on television during the Fairchild trial as rabid Gotham journalists accused Bruce Wayne of rape and murder. It was all large, empty space dominated by an enormous four-poster bed floating on a cream-colored carpet. The same floor-to-ceiling windows so favored in the rest of the mansion were present here too, framing the pale midwinter sun as it slowly sank over the park-like growth of trees separating Wayne Manor from the river.

Selina watched as the sun died, feeling Bruce begin to stir next to her. He’d held her while she slept, and Selina struggled to remember the last time she’d trusted a man enough to allow him to do so. She felt sad, suddenly. And very old.

He was awake. The change in his breathing alerted her to it and the way he began putting a careful distance between them, incrementally shifting away from her body. She turned her head and changed position, regaining what little ground he’d claimed for himself.

“Morning,” she smiled. “Or afternoon. Sleep well?”

“Yes,” he replied, his voice free and clear of the lingering effects of sleep. She knew he’d trained himself to come awake fully and completely at a moment’s notice: it was a necessity in a warrior’s life. She possessed the same ability, but it seemed unnecessary in the warm security of the moment.

“How’d it go last night?” she asked guardedly, touching tender fingers to his battered face. He allowed her to gently explore the bruised, swollen eye and split lip. “Doesn’t look like a Rogue’s work. Too messy,” she pointed out. He nodded.

“Just some punks trying to rob a department store,” he told her. “It was a quiet night.”

“Good,” she said, rolling back onto her side and closing her eyes. “At least Alfred’s big dinner is still on. I’d hate to see the old guy go to so much trouble for nothing.”

“It’s important to him,” Bruce agreed. “But now is hardly the time for a family gathering.”

Selina grinned. “Yeah, that’s what Arbor Day is for.” She turned her head again, looking at him closely. “You really aren’t looking forward to it, are you?”

Bruce didn’t answer, fearing she might ask why. “What are your plans?”

She opened her eyes, part of her wanting to ask if she’d be as welcome at his table as she was in his bed. The larger, more sensible part, hugged her pillow and closed her eyes again. “I think Slam and Holly are coming out. Alfred’s setting up the south parlor for us.”

He rose, planting his feet firmly on the creamy carpet and breathing deeply and slowly through his nose as he felt the blood rush back to the wounds on his face. They began to throb painfully. “Selina, you should have asked me before telling Slam who I really am,” he told her over his shoulder, trying to make it sound nonchalant, casual. Her response was important, and he tried to take the scolding edge out of his tone.

Selina sat quickly, fire in her eyes. “I didn’t tell Slam. He figured it out for himself,” she said. “You’re not the only detective in Gotham, you know.”

“He threatened to expose the truth if I didn’t let him see you,” Bruce told her, his back still turned away as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Can he be trusted?”

“I trust him,” she said quietly. “What if you can’t? You won’t kill him, and bribery and threats won’t work on Slam.”

Bruce ignored her question; she knew that he was capable of destroying Slam Bradley’s life. “It’s important that no one knows Bruce Wayne is Batman,” Bruce explained quietly, employing a tone she hadn’t heard him use around her in years, and even then only at the scene of some crime she’d committed. “Too many people know already and my operations could be compromised if the wrong people were to learn the truth. Wayne Enterprises would come under attack, putting the Wayne Foundation in jeopardy.” He paused for a heartbeat, wondering why he’d never voiced that fear aloud before. Was the Wayne Foundation the most important aspect of Bruce Wayne’s life? He could bear to see all the rest stripped away: the manor, his affluent lifestyle…but not the Foundation. That was his parents’ legacy, particularly his mother’s.

He forced himself to move on from that troubling discovery of newfound vulnerability. “Dick’s role in my life would be easy to determine. And Tim’s. Their lives would be in danger. I cannot overstate the risk of exposure, Selina.”

She hated the serious tone he’d employed for his lecture. She knew better than he the value of a secret identity to retreat behind after the mask came off. The ‘death’ of Selina Kyle had opened a Pandora’s box for Catwoman, resulting in the obliteration of both her identities.

“Slam wouldn’t expose you on a whim,” she told him directly. “Why did he feel he had to threaten you to see me?

Bruce still wouldn’t look at her. “He thought I was responsible for the attack on you.” _Which I was_ , he added silently.

“I’ll explain it to him,” she said, wondering about the flare of guilt in his expression. “He’s a good man, Bruce. One of the best.”

Bruce turned to her sharply. “He took advantage of you”

Selina looked surprised at his sudden anger, his tone full of much more emotion than when he’d spoken of Slam’s threat to his life’s work. She had never known how closely Batman had watched her in the months after the East End Community Center was destroyed. Was he aware of how close she’d come to the edge? Did he know that it was only Slam who’d held her back from that darkness? More importantly, did he care?

“Actually,” she told him evenly, “since he loved me and I was using him to punish myself, I took advantage of him.”

Bruce didn’t seem pleased by her admission. How old-fashioned he was, she thought, and it occurred to her that Bruce and Slam might have a lot more in common than an affection for female cat burglars.

“He shouldn’t have slept with you,” Bruce declared, undeterred from his chosen course of moral indignation. “Not after what happened to Maggie.”

“Not everyone has your self-restraint,” she pointed out. “Thankfully.”

He looked at her in question. She smiled. “It’s taken twelve years for us to end up arguing in bed together.”

“That isn’t my fault,” he countered, annoyed more with her good humor than her accusation. She was responsible for the majority of the obstacles between them: crime, graft, theft, vice…

“Well, I think it was inevitable anyway,” Selina grinned, changing the subject just to annoy him. “Leslie’s going to set me up with a walking cast in a few days. I’m counting on your help for physical therapy.”

The request came as a surprise. He doubted that Selina would accept him as a drill sergeant in the way that the younger vigilantes had. Her methods were very different from those he employed as Batman. Training her, helping her through the necessary physical therapy after her injuries would be difficult and time consuming. And he wasn’t sure he wanted her back out in the city. Her life was in danger, and she exposed herself to so many risks when she donned her Catwoman personae.

“It’s not like I’m asking you for a kidney,” she joked, poking him in the ribs. “Just help me get back into top condition as quickly as possible. I’d contact Ted, but after what happened to Flannery…” Selina trailed off, biting her lip. “Think about it, okay? If you helped me get back into shape, you’d know I was fit to be out there with you. You wouldn’t need to worry.”

It made sense. It was a logical, well-defended argument and Bruce didn’t deny that the idea of testing Selina’s abilities held a certain appeal on a professional level. But he had not yet decided if he wanted her out there with him.

“Just think about it,” she requested for the second time. Selina kissed him lightly on the lips in an affectionate punctuation. He briefly entertained the thought of putting her on the Wayne Enterprises executive fast-track. She was a hell of a negotiator.

*****************

They began arriving at six, each slightly uneasy due to the fact that they rarely saw one another under such relaxed circumstances. Christmas dinner at Wayne Manor did not involve bio-engineered plagues, earthquakes, robotic dinosaurs, Venom-powered super villains or mysterious deaths and disappearances. It would, as a consequence, involve appetizers and small talk, far more terrifying to the hardened group of vigilantes than any other foe.

Alfred greeted Dick, Barbara and Cassandra at the door. They were the first members of the family to arrive and Alfred treated them more formally than usual, showing them into the receiving room off the main dining room with a gentle “Just there, sir,” as if Dick hadn’t grown up in the manor and Barbara had suddenly forgotten the floor plan of the rebuilt Wayne Manor.

“He’s nervous about something,” Dick told Barbara as he wheeled her through the dining room, shooting a significant glance at the banquet table arranged with the rarely-employed Victorian place settings. Cassandra trailed behind, a shadow passing through the room. The dining hall was lit by candelabras set at precise intervals on the huge table. Priceless china plates gleamed against the dark red tablecloth with garlands of holly woven between each setting. Silver-domed serving trays stood waiting on sideboards lining the long, oak-paneled room, sealing in the warmth and flavors of Alfred’s gourmet dishes. Dick was starving. His mouth watered in anticipation as he and Barbara examined the menu. The five-course meal culminated in duck with oysters and three different turkeys, but the entire dinner seemed to contain as much imagination and variety as one could expect from a world-class chef at the peak of his career like Alfred.

“Definitely nervous,” Dick muttered as he pushed Barbara into the receiving room. He’d worn a navy blue double-breasted suit with a monochromatic tie. Barbara wore a diamond pendant necklace and a rich burgundy dress. Dick deliberately came to a stop under a spring of mistletoe, bending to brush her lips with a soft kiss. “I’m glad we’re in this together,” Dick told her. Barbara smiled tightly.

“As long as the dissension in the ranks isn’t too obvious in front of Dad,” she agreed.

Dick rubbed her shoulder. They rarely discussed how much (or how little) James Gordon suspected about their dual identities. Sometimes Dick was sure Jim knew that Bruce was Batman, but he doubted the former Police Commissioner had accepted that Barbara had been Batgirl before the Joker’s attack. If he did know the truth and had guessed that Dick had once been Robin, Dick wasn’t sure how Jim would feel about their relationship. He sighed, wondering how many sleepless nights he’d spent worrying about Gordon’s reaction to the truth of their lives. He and Barbara had been stuck in neutral for a while, trying to figure out their next move. If they were to get married, Jim would need to know the truth. All of it. And Dick felt that Bruce should be the one to explain things, a conversation that Dick’s adoptive father seemed determined to avoid.

*****************

Cassandra, finished with her inspection of the dining room, slipped into the receiving parlor. She looked at the small, exquisitely adorned Christmas tree in the corner of the room with a quizzical expression, then dismissed the tree entirely, preferring to stand before the blazing hearth and examine the pictures on the mantle. She had only recently discovered that Batman was really a man and she regarded the pictures carefully, trying to guess what the warrior’s face looked like in daylight.

The photographs were mainly of Wayne forefathers who had contributed to the battle of converting the small, sleepy farming community of Gotham Proper into a thriving modern metropolis. Most of the mantel pictures were of sober-faced men in outdated suits, their postures unnaturally stiff. Cassandra eyed these ancestors of the Batman, thinking of fathers and their children.

When Alfred next answered the door, it was to admit Tim Drake. Alfred concealed the surprise in his eyes. “Master Tim? I thought Master Drake would be joining us?”

“Yeah,” Tim stuttered, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “Dad and Dana wanted to stay at home. And I knew you had planned this big dinner, and you’d gone to so much trouble…” 

Alfred smiled, his mustache twitching. He was touched. Tim was perhaps the most considerate member of Bruce’s small family. He patted the boy on the shoulder. “Thank you. If your father would like to spend Christmas with you, please do not linger here. You should spend the holidays with your family.”

“I am,” Tim replied simply. “Besides, I’ve been out of school for nearly a week. Dad and Dana could use some time alone, I think. Newlyweds,” Tim smiled, shrugging. “What can y’do?”

Alfred nodded wisely, holding the door wide for Tim. He did not feel it necessary to direct young Master Drake to the receiving room.

Leslie surprised him by coming from the kitchen rather than the grand front entrance; she slipped her arm around his torso and hugged his back, her face pressing into his shoulders. “Merry Christmas,” she murmured against him. Alfred tipped his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, thankful Leslie was here. He turned and she handed him a small gift. After a cursory glance to both the left and right to ensure privacy, he bussed her on the lips. Leslie smiled against his mouth.

“Merry Christmas,” Alfred said, keeping his hand on her shoulder. “They’re in the parlor.”

“Need any help?” she offered. Alfred shook his head. Leslie glanced down at the present and Alfred obligingly opened the gift, careful not to tear the wrapping paper. Her eyes were laughing as she watched him strip the gift wrap away from the slim white box, his touch as sure and delicate as it was in surgery. Alfred opened the box, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Why…why thank you,” Alfred told her, a little flummoxed. It was a limited edition of Shakespeare’s Henry V, hand-bound in leather with his name embossed in elegant gold script on the back. He resisted the urge to tear up the stairs and find the gift he’d chosen and carefully wrapped for her late last night. Alfred had worried he was being too forward and had only now decided to give it to her. The diamond tennis bracelet didn’t seem so superfluous now.

“Ready to face the lions?” she asked him with a smile. Alfred schooled his face back into the composure required of all English butlers.

“I’m serving tonight. Please join the others. Commissioner Gordon is due to arrive at any moment.” 

“Are Selina’s friends here?”

Alfred shook his head and Leslie narrowed her eyes. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing, my dear,” he assured her, pushing her slightly into the hall leading to the dining room. “Nothing at all.” 

The doorbell chimed again and Alfred opened the thick oak barrier to admit Commissioner Gordon clad in a rumpled trench coat, leaning heavily on the silver-headed cane which had been a Christmas gift from Bruce last year, if Alfred remembered correctly. Alfred nodded, trying to appear as disinterested in James Gordon as would be required of Bruce Wayne’s valet. He thought the Commissioner looked tired, thin and drawn, but resolved in his effort not to let his daughter or Bruce’s family see it. Alfred admitted him quietly, taking the trench coat. Gordon wore a red sweater paired with dark dress pants and a brown tweed jacket; Alfred approved of the effort, if not the result. James Gordon was hardly known for his fashion acumen.

“Down the hall to the left, sir,” Alfred told him. Gordon smiled, thanking him quietly. Alfred was terrified for a moment that the Commissioner would try to tip him.

Gordon advanced down the hall, his cane tapping against the polished marble floor of the grand entrance foyer. He’d been in Wayne Manor only a few times since the reconstruction following the ’quake. Bruce Wayne had made his family home even more fortress-like, something Gordon hadn’t thought possible. He had always been intimidated in the homes of the rich, even in the house of a man he liked and respected as much as Bruce Wayne. Gordon thought of the first time he’d visited the Manor, back when he’d first transferred to Gotham. He’d suspected that Bruce was Batman in those days. 

It seemed like a long time ago.

Gordon found the parlor and went directly to where Barbara and Dick were gathered around a small sideboard, laughing at one of Tim Drake’s corny jokes. “Hi Dad,” Barbara greeted, letting her father stoop to kiss her on the cheek. Jim shook hands with Dick, greeting the boy warmly. He liked him, liked the man he’d become, and Gordon still held out hopes that Dick would be the one to take care of his little girl. He clapped Tim on the back and grabbed a handful of peanuts from the sideboard serving dish, popping them into his mouth. The room was warm, tastefully decorated, lit by the blazing fire set deep in the large hearth. It was the very picture of a quiet Christmas at Wayne Manor. Gordon sighed, wishing he could light a pipe. Make it a perfect holiday spent among old friends.

Some movement in the shadow by the hearth caught his eye and Gordon finally saw the dark-haired, small-framed girl who’d been standing there, intently examining the silver-framed pictures set over the fireplace. He hadn’t noticed her until just now. It was if she had willed her presence into existence, appearing magically from shadows in the room. He’d forgotten her relation to Wayne: the papers speculated that she was the result of a trip Bruce had taken to southeast Asia years ago, just another illegitimate Wayne heir. Barbara had tried to convince him once that the girl was a long-lost relative of Dick’s, or Tim’s…or someone. Alfred, maybe. Jim could never keep up with what he was expected to believe. 

He was content to let such matters rest and swallow whatever it was they wanted him to believe. It made life easier, sometimes.

“Where’s Bruce?” he asked pleasantly, watching them carefully. The kids gathered in the room stiffened a bit, their postures telling him something he’d felt since setting foot in the Wayne homestead. Something wasn’t quite right in this house. Gordon gave up, taking his pipe from his pocket and clenching it between his teeth. He wouldn’t light it but it felt good, comforting, to have it in his mouth. 

“I think he’s still upstairs,” Barbara told him, her voice high and too bright. Gordon patted her on the arm, taking his pipe out from his teeth and holding it cupped in his palm like the hand of an old friend.

“How’re things in the ’Haven?” Jim asked Dick, who was in the midst of shoveling peanuts into his mouth and had to choke past them to respond.

“F-fine,” Dick said, dropping half the handful of peanuts on the rug. Tim grinned at his friend’s ineptitude and bent to help Dick clean them up. Barbara smiled, shrugging at Dick’s silliness. Jim thought they were all trying too hard. Only the girl in the corner seemed immune to the currents of tension in the parlor.

Leslie Thompkins came in, greeted Jim warmly with a handshake, and hugged Barbara. “Good to see you,” she said to them both. Barbara pretended that Leslie didn’t communicate with Oracle every other day and hugged her right back. Leslie had an aura of comfort and motherliness that most of the orphans in the room responded to strongly. Even Jim was drawn to her warmth.

“How are you, Mr. Gordon?” she asked, her voice low and pleasant. Jim smiled.

“Can’t complain,” he told her, just as the atmosphere in the room changed. Bruce Wayne stood in the doorway, watching them. Jim hadn’t even heard his approach down the marble-tiled hallway off the dining room and he shivered as if caught in a sudden draft. Barbara and Dick stopped chattering to each other, Tim stopped his class-clown routine and even the quiet girl at the hearth seemed to withdraw her presence, becoming invisible again. Gordon couldn’t begin to guess what was going on. He wiggled an eyebrow at Leslie, who didn’t seem to be able (or willing) to shed light on the change in mood.

Jim stepped forward, closer to the entrance in the little room. “Bruce!” he said in warm greeting. Bruce’s expression changed. It was like watching the storm clouds pass over Lake Michigan back in Chicago when sunlight finally hit the water.

“Hi, Jim,” Bruce greeted, his voice just as warm and friendly as Gordon’s tone, making a show of it. He grabbed Jim’s elbow, careful not to upset the other man’s balance. Jim brushed off the formality, wrapping his arm around Wayne’s shoulder. It was like hugging steel. Bruce laughed, a short, strange sound, and Jim was aware they were all watching. What the hell was going on?

“Dinner is served.” Alfred had appeared at the door as if summoned by the increasing tension in the room. They filled into the main dining hall and sat down at their assigned places. Jim smiled. Alfred had made place cards for an intimate dinner attended by people who’d known each other for years. Gotta love the English.

James Gordon had never had servants. He’d come from a solidly middle-class background, served in Vietnam as a Special Ops agent and worked his way up the ranks on the Chicago force before being transferred to Gotham. Even after the years of charity events and gala balls, which required the attendance of the Police Commissioner, it still felt positively unreal to be sitting in one of the finest homes in the country, being waiting on by a private butler, sipping the same kind of soup they probably served in Buckingham Palace and sucking down wine that cost more than his home in TriCorner. 

He leaned over to whisper in Barbara’s ear, “Which fork do I use?”, making her smile and pat his shoulder. She looked beautiful tonight, reminding him strongly of his first wife Barbara, her aunt. James’ ex-wife was back in Chicago raising their son: Paul was about thirteen now and wanted nothing to do with his father. Jim didn’t blame him. He’d treated Barbara horribly when she was pregnant with Paul, and their marriage had never really recovered. After little Barbara’s parents died, she’d come to live with her aunt and uncle. When the marriage disintegrated, Barbara had chosen to remain with her uncle Jim and not the aunt who was her namesake. 

They’d been through so much together, he and his little girl. So much pain and so little joy. To say he loved her was an understatement. Jim knew he’d kill for her. To see her unhappy or anxious, as she clearly was at this moment, was torture. What made it worse was that despite everything, despite all that they had shared and experienced as father and daughter, he could never ask her why it was so hard for her to smile on a night like this.

Alfred started serving the first course, which consisted of black truffles and leek ravioli with celery root soup. The butler made his way around the table slowly, pretending not to listen to the low hum of whispers. Bruce sat at the head, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. His eyes were downcast. He seemed to be somewhere else, oblivious to the questioning glances of Barbara and Dick or Tim’s worried expression. Cassandra sat next to him, fiddling with her place setting, rearranging her fork and knife to a more precise angle. Alfred tried not to be offended, reaching past her delicately to unfold her napkin and drape it across her lap before the girl could muddle with that as well. He filled her bowl with soup and moved to the left, past the empty spaces reserved for Jack Drake and his new wife Dana to fill Tim’s bowl. The boy was looking anxiously around the table, waiting for something to happen that would upset the fragile peace. Tim always looked perpetually on alert; he reminded Alfred strongly of Bruce at that age, constantly watching for some unseen danger.

Alfred moved smoothly around the end of the table, serving Commissioner Gordon, then Barbara, then Dick, who was busy trying to nudge Tim’s foot under the table and make a face at him. Alfred reached Leslie, who shot him a sympathetic look which Alfred pretended not to see. His eyes fixed directly ahead and he appeared immune to the strain Bruce’s presence was causing. It was none of his affair, he reminded himself, repeating his mantra as he had for the last decade. Until someone grew upset with the menu or complained about the table arrangements, it was none of his business.

The first course was served without incident. Bruce still hadn’t spoken to anyone, not even bothering to keep up the small-talk banter of a bored aristocrat for Jim Gordon’s sake. That worried Dick. Bruce rarely dropped the pretense around Jim, but he seemed resolved to sit in his position at the head of the table and brood. Dick wondered if he’d had a fight with Selina. He knew she was staying at Wayne Manor, in Bruce’s bedroom. Dick shook his head, biting into a thick slice of warm rye bread. What was her hold over him? Why couldn’t Bruce see that he couldn’t trust her?

Barbara touched his knee under the table and Dick glanced at her. She inclined her head towards Bruce, who had lowered his hands and looked as if he was about to speak. However, he didn’t say anything and continued to stare at them. Dick rolled his eyes at Barbara, shrugged, and went back to munching on the bread and torturing Tim.

Barbara leaned closer to her father and listened halfheartedly as he told her about his plans for the garden in the spring, trying to absorb details about sweet peas, sunflowers and roses, and failing badly. Barbara continued to watch Bruce, trying to bore a hole in his thick head with her eyes. If he wouldn’t listen to her about Selina…

The door chime sounded and Alfred left silently, setting the soup tureen he’d been using on the sideboard. Bruce looked as though he wanted to follow Alfred out of the room but Leslie’s touch stilled his movement. They concentrated on pretending not to eavesdrop as Alfred opened the door and spoke quietly with whoever was there. The door closed and they listened, astonished, as two sets of footsteps echoed down the hall and went up the stairs. Dick looked at Bruce, mouthing ‘Who?’ 

Bruce met his question with a blank stare. 

Barbara sighed, exasperated, and when Alfred returned, she asked him point-blank “Who was that?”

Alfred picked up the soup tureen, holding it lightly. “Additional guests,” he tried, unsure as they had ever seen him. Tim raised an eyebrow, opened his mouth to ask another question, glanced at Jim and reconsidered.

“Well, are they going to join us?” Jim asked, perking up a bit. He was curious to see who else might brave a Wayne Christmas. 

“I don’t believe so, sir,” Alfred responded politely, disappearing into the door leading to the kitchen.

Bruce measured their reactions from his vantage point at the head of the table. Barbara looked annoyed, Jim, Dick and Tim were plainly confused, and Cassie seemed bored. Leslie sipped her wine with composure, rising. Everyone save Barbara and Cassandra stood politely. “I think I’ll pop in and say hello to Slam and Holly,” she announced, leaving the room. 

Bruce closed his eyes, waiting a beat to open them and see how Jim was reacting. He only looked more perplexed. Dick’s reaction was even more curious. At the sound of Holly’s name, his head jerked up and he glanced around anxiously. Bruce knew he’d worked with Selina’s young partner in Bludhaven but he doubted Holly Robinson knew Dick and Nightwing were the same person. Selina wouldn’t have had the chance to tell her…although Slam Bradley knew about his secret identity, and he had to assume Holly would be able to put two and two together. She had to know who Dick was, at least. 

Bruce took a sip of water and tried not to think about Selina’s dinner with Slam and Holly. He doubted their meal would be progressing as awkwardly as his own Christmas dinner was. Selina made it nearly impossible to be awkward or uncomfortable around her, unless she wished it. He would never be as adept as her at putting people at their ease. Bruce remembered something, a ladies’ luncheon his mother had held at the Manor once. Martha Wayne had few close friends, but she often hosted lavish social soirees. He’d observed at the age of eight that no one ever seemed uncomfortable around his mother: she had a natural ability to settle disputes and negate tension in the household. 

Bruce sipped some water and tried not to mentally list the similarities between his mother and Selina.

Well into the third course, which was designed as a respite from the warmer dishes with lemon sorbet, candies lemon and fresh fruit, conversation finally began to resume. Jim began to talk about his experiences teaching at Dick’s old Alma matter, Gotham U. Bruce finally broke is vow of silence and began to tell Jim about the new science wing at the university Bruce was funding through the Wayne Foundation. The low voices of the two men seemed to dispel the lingering nervous tension around the rest of the table. Dick and Tim began to trade one-liners again, Barbara giggling at them girlishly. Even Cassie was smiling. Alfred silently congratulated himself. He was about to declare the evening a success when Dick got up to use the bathroom. It hadn’t taken as long as last year for the small group to begin to talk to each other as people. 

Dick made his way down the hall to the foyer, hanging a sharp left and going up a short flight of stairs, down another hall and finally reaching a bathroom in the west wing of the mansion. He was glad Bruce had kept the main floor plan of the old house when he’d reconstructed the Manor. It had taken Dick weeks to memorize the layout of the gigantic house when he’d first moved in. Dick groaned when he saw a sign scrawled in Alfred’s elegant hand posted to the bathroom door. Out of Order. Dick frowned, turned back down the hall and made for one of the bathrooms in the east wing.

The bathroom door was closed and Dick tried the handle, rattling it.

“Just a sec!” a girl’s young, familiar voice replied. Dick panicked. Holly Robinson, who’d met Nightwing and Dick Grayson as separate individuals. He briefly considered diving into one of the hallway closets or taking refuge in an empty bedroom, then envisioned an endlessly silly farce in which he would go in one door of the endless hallway and popping out of another, pursued all the time by one of Catwoman’s sidekicks.

In the end, Dick did the only thing he could. He stood his ground.

The bathroom door opened and Holly emerged, very different from the way she’d appeared in Bludhaven a month ago. She looked nothing like her undercover street personae. Gone were the dark, dirty clothes, bedraggled hair and pale skin. Instead, Holly Robinson looked like a slightly wild fifteen-year-old. Her hair was fire-engine red and streaked blond. Dark eye makeup and bubble-gum pink lipstick made her small, pretty features seem hopelessly girlish and she was wearing a T-shirt lauding a local punk band and jeans that had been mended with several eye-catching patches.

“Hey,” she greeted him in surprise. Dick swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“Hi,” he greeted. Holly folded her arms across her flat chest, shifted her balance, and looked him squarely in the eye.

“How badly do you have to pee?”

“Excuse me?” Dick stuttered, taken aback. He slowly realized she was standing in the bathroom door, blocking his passage. And she was teasing him.

“No hard feelings?” she asked, her posture changing, softening. Dick simply stared at her, completely out of his element. Holly dipped her head. “I mean, you lied about who you were, I lied about who I was. We both lied about who raised us, and how. Can we call it even?”

Dick blinked and Holly extended her hand. He shook it tentatively.

“Hmm,” she hummed. “You’re not so bad.”

She left him standing in shock by the bathroom door as Dick tried to remember why he’d come all the way to the east wing.

He returned to find the small group in the main dining hall much as he’d left them. Jim and Bruce were arguing pleasantly about the new science wing. Cassie and Barbara were chatting, their heads bent conspiratorially together. Dick took a seat and sprang right back up: Tim had put a fork on his chair. He glared at the kid, only to be met with a blank expression. Robins were required to have perfect poker faces. Dick didn’t notice Cassandra’s soft smile.

They were just finishing desert when the doorbell rang a third time. Even Alfred looked a bit surprised. He moved sedately to the entrance hall and they waited again for the soft murmur of voices. There was only silence.

After a few moments Bruce stood and left the dining room. Dick hesitated for a moment and followed. The hallway was dark: Alfred had lowered the lights to better display the glow of the giant Christmas tree in the living room. Cold air had filled the foyer. Dick could practically see his breath. Bruce had come to a dead stop just in front of him and Dick resisted the urge to peak from behind his back like some scared kid. Nothing about this felt right.

There were three people standing in the door, bracing the heavy slab of oak with their small frames. Three girls, all looking like Holly’s ‘before’ picture. They wore dark, baggy clothing, sweatshirts and pocket-lined cargo pants, all in different shades of black. Their faces were thin, pinched and dark knit caps were pulled low over their foreheads. Dick wrinkled his nose. The girls smelled like the East River.

One was standing next to Alfred, her small hand on his forearm. The butler didn’t look frightened, exactly, but the girl was whispering something to him and he kept nodding slowly, thoughtfully.

“Alfred?” Bruce asked, his voice low and mellow. The Playboy voice, hiding Bruce’s concern and fear.

“Sir?” Alfred looked up at him. “These ladies would like an audience with Batman.”

Dick’s eyes widened, and he looked to Bruce for some hint as to how to handle this. Bruce shifted his weight, assuming a fighter’s stance. Dick did the same. Unless these girls had been trained by the best, they wouldn’t be aware of what was happening.

“I wouldn’t try it,” warned the first girl. She was the one holding Alfred and had a slight accent…Mexican, Chiappas dialect, Dick guessed. Her dark eyes signaled something to him but Dick couldn’t begin to interpret what she was trying to tell him. “He’s safe. You’re all safe. We came here to deliver a message, nothing more.”

Bruce backed off, relaxing, dropping the threat of physical violence. “Who asked you to deliver the message?”

The girl kept her hand on Alfred’s wrist. “I think you know. That punta, that little black man, he told you who we are. All about us.”

“He told us nothing,” Bruce assured her, his voice sincere, convincing. He moved a little closer, his palms up, radiating calm towards the girls. Dick thought they looked plenty calm, almost medicated. Especially the leader. She watched Bruce like she was looking at a bug crawl around on a rock.

The girl flicked her head, sending a thick lock of black hair over her shoulder. One of the other girls approached, knelt on the polished marble of the entranceway and slid something across the hall towards them. Dick recognized it right away: the Prophet’s little board.

The plank of wood mounted on skateboard wheels rolled towards them, coming to a stop when it connected with Bruce’s ankle. He didn’t move to pick it up, barely even glancing down at it. The girl didn’t look surprised or disappointed. She simply continued to watch.

“We want a meeting,” the girl told him, and Dick watched Bruce’s face. He recognized her. Dick took another look at the girl and her two friends, scrutinizing their features carefully. He finally placed them: he’d seen their photos scattered around Barbara’s room. They were three of the missing girls, the ones Holly Robinson had come to Bludhaven to find.

The Mexican girl continued. “April 1st. Feast of Fools. Wear the masks, if you like.”

“Who?” Bruce asked in Batman’s low growl.

“You. And the son. And the devil woman. El gato. April 1st, you choose the place. Anywhere in Gotham, at midnight.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Dick muttered. “This doesn’t-”

“Be quiet!” Bruce snapped, turning his head slightly towards Dick, then back to the three girls. “Where is Jessica Bradshaw?”

The Mexican girl blinked, but her eyes didn’t change. The other two didn’t even show they were listening. “I don’t know that name,” the leader said and Dick would have bet money she was telling the truth. “Adios,” she whispered, withdrawing her hand from Alfred’s arm. The girls backed out of the house, the leader’s sharp eyes on Bruce and Dick. They vanished in the darkness around Wayne Manor, lost in the sudden snowstorm that blown up north of the city.

“Perimeter check,” Bruce barked. “Now!”

Dick heard Tim scurry around behind him, headed for the cave. He hadn’t even been aware Tim had followed them into the hallway. Alfred shook his head slightly, took in Bruce and Dick, the freezing entranceway and their concerned expressions. “Sir?” he asked calmly. “What happened?”

“We’ve been compromised,” Bruce told him.

*****************


End file.
